


We Brothers, We Sisters, We Vod'e Few

by infinitecompositions



Series: To Pluck the Strings of Destiny [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cuy'val Dar, Found Family, Future Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi Culture Respected, Mandalorian Culture, Mandalorian culture respected, Naboo culture respected, No Qui-Gon bashing, Not Cross-Posted, Not a good master, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, Qui-Gon is a good Jedi and a good person, Rating subject to change, Shadow Obi-Wan Kenobi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 79,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27465595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitecompositions/pseuds/infinitecompositions
Summary: “In terms of disposition? Academics? Thinking on his feet? You’ve very nearly brought me a perfect candidate. Whatever happened on Kuat, we will see to it that he has space to heal, but Mace you need to understand that he will not be leaving the program unless he wishes to. Once he is in, he’s in and the Council will not be able to recall him without incredibly compelling cause.”Every Knight has potential, that is a given. But Kenobi had notes in his file to make him a diplomat. Certainly, the Council had been banking on him following Qui-Gon’s footsteps as a crisis negotiator.If he signs off on this, then they might have to rethink that plan. Have to find somebody else, because Kenobi’s entire job will rely on him staying away from undue attention.[Updates Fridays]
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Bail Organa, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Jango Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Jedi Council, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Mandalorians, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Quinlan Vos, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Satine Kryze, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Quinlan Vos, Qui-Gon Jinn & Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: To Pluck the Strings of Destiny [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2158455
Comments: 631
Kudos: 617





	1. Chapter 1

Being sent out for his first mission while his (former) master was still unconscious was unorthodox. Masters Windu and Yoda, however, had been painfully aware of the tension between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon over the last years of his apprenticeship. Qui-Gon, set in his ways, had seen Obi-Wan’s general adherence to rules as an affront to his teachings. Obi-Wan, rebellious within well established reason, had seen Qui-Gon’s inconsistency as a frustration.

They got on well, and they certainly maintained the standard affection between Master and Padawan, but there was an undercurrent of tension as time wore on.

Perhaps having the decision of when Obi-Wan would test removed from their hands was, ultimately, for the best. Given his showing of taking the first opportunity to cast off Obi-Wan and take a new Padawan in front of the Council, there was little grumbling about sending a green Jedi out. Obi-Wan’s humiliation by his former Master had, evidently, made its rounds in the rumor mills. Add his spotty history to that and he has so much to answer for that two weeks out of the Temple is a Force-sent blessing he will not sneer at or overlook. Depending on how it goes, he might even take the next assignment available and just keep out of the Temple as much as he can.

His mission now is a soft one. A gentle easing into the life of a Jedi knight. Go to Alderaan, help Queen Organa and her advisors find sources and information on an old legal tradition that was the center of a dispute, and go home. Two weeks tops, and without Qui-Gon poking tempers maybe he could sequester in the library, conduct some interviews with those necessary, and even be out early.

Alderaan is beautiful. The plants mix with the sleek architecture in what looks like a revised version of Naboo. Naboo, with its long history and old buildings, has upgraded many old buildings where Alderaan took the bones of their buildings from an equally long history and has updated. A new exterior and façade are made for repaired and remade foundations as time stretches on, and Obi-Wan finds himself admiring it as he lands. It reminds him of Naboo, for all that it is wholly different - both are brimming with life and calling out, reaching out, to those that would seek the land as home. 

Bail Organa is going to take the Senate seat after his and Queen Breha’s anniversary. He had stayed out of public office, but according to Obi-Wan’s brief research there was a growing move to have Bail in the Senate to speak to Alderaanian interests. The former Senator was an old man, and his second grandchild had just been born; an election had been held recently and he could finally retire. 

Alderaan had prided itself on being a refuge, a beacon, and a humanitarian planet at its core. The history Obi-Wan had read on the way here had talked about partnerships with warring planets as far out as Mandalore to protect the medics and supplies sent out to planets torn apart by the Jedi-Sith wars. Whatever tradition it was that Obi-Wan was supposed to be learning about, he can only imagine he will be learning a good bit about this planet that is so rooted in aiding others that it shines as a beacon of light from the next system over.

Bail greets him with a hearty handshake and a quick dismissal of titles. “I am not even a Senator yet, Knight Kenobi.”

“But you are still Consort.”

“And you are not to call me by that, either.” He shrugs. “For all we like our formal wear, our formal titles are a little less common here. The Queen, certainly, keeps hers. Other than that, it’s all personal preference and I would prefer you didn’t use mine.”

“Then I must insist you call me Obi-Wan.”

Bail smiles at him. He may be a politician in so many ways, but the Force around him sings with honesty.

It sings in Alderaanian, too, but Obi-Wan doesn’t know enough to know what it says. He had always been more tied up in learning Mando’a, learning about Mando’ad culture, since his year there.

Obi-Wan follows Bail through streets that have a canvas of grey painted with pale-yellow paving, with plant life and all its myriad colors, and with the laughter of the people around. Bail wears darker colors, more somber and professional by Core standards.

That is not true for the rest of Alderaan, though.

“Color is important in our culture. We cherish it as much as we cherish everyone of our people. Perhaps we are not so immediately welcoming as the Mandalorians, but we do welcome those who would come to us for aid. If they become friends, lovers, or parents? Well, the more the merrier.”

Opt-in, rather than being opted-in like in everything Obi-Wan had read of Mando’a culture. It’s an interesting contrast, but it does add some context for Mandalore’s past with Alderaan. The street Bail takes him down is a wide one with people all over. It’s a market square, though it takes Obi-Wan longer than he’d like to admit with the press of bodies and the sights around him.

It is the smell that gets him. Something that is hot and threatens to burn his mouth – to bring him that _heturam_ and _hetikles_ he had only experienced, and had come to love, during his year on Mandalore. He loves spicy food, and he knows that it isn’t something he will always get to have. If he were not on a mission currently, he would go searching that smell out.

Bail smiles. “Our capital market is a sight to see during the day, but it can get rather rowdy at night. We have some patrols to keep things safe and whatnot, but it is practically tradition for the young here to spend parts of their night out in the markets. Some of these stalls become bars, and then things pick up. They keep the noise down, for the most part, but people in the area also know what to expect.”

It’s fascinating. It’s the kind of thing Obi-Wan _wants_ to experience even if he doesn’t usually drink or get to go with his own friends.

He has a duty, though. And duty comes before desire. Before personal fulfillment, even, if his former Master was to be believed.

And he worries for Anakin, who has so long been told his duty was to the will of a master and now is going to be tied to Qui-Gon.

Obi-Wan knows, within reason, that Qui-Gon taught and did as he felt was right. That he was flawed. But Obi-Wan came back from Melida/Daan with a chip the size of an asteroid on his shoulder because he watched people his own age die and suffer and Qui-Gon shamed him for trying to help. For staying behind and fighting.

He did what was right. And somewhere in his heart, underneath all his insecurities and the tension of the last several years, he knows that and clings to it. For all the Order questioned his commitment – likely may still question it as much as his own Master had – he knows if he were to drop dead it would be with as clear a conscience as possible.

As clear a conscience as could be had from a war like that.

Bail seems to catch on to some of the lighter of those thoughts and nudges him. “You should go one night. We certainly don’t expect you to be holed up in the library day in and day out – the fresh air and new company will probably help keep your mind fresh.”

A Jedi’s mind should always be fresh. Should be sharp no matter what. But Obi-Wan knows exactly what Bail is alluding to and knows that no matter how hard he tries he will always have times he needs a break. If it is being offered…

He stores the idea in the back of his head to consider later. A time when he actually does _need_ that break and isn’t just fantasizing about a normal life. He had been dropped at the Temple by Stewjoni parents that didn’t want him; he knows his life is better for it, if that’s the case. His normal life will never be _a_ normal life, but he has worked to make his peace with it.

He has never been to Stewjon. He had the chance to visit, but got off ship two systems over instead. He chickened out, he knows he did. But why bother going if he didn’t have anything to look for or forward to?

The palace Obi-Wan is led to is actually fairly modest. It certainly speaks to the wealth of the occupants but it is, in other ways, welcoming to anybody. The gardens are simple and have a sign that advertises a communal food garden. The area immediately inside is a gallery of Alderaanian artwork with large arches and a vast welcoming space where citizens are milling about while guards stand watch over the area.

Obi-Wan processes all that information quickly as they move towards the private offices of Queen and Consort; she is wearing a long gown of fine silk. It’s simpler than anything they wore on Naboo, and even her hair, done up as it is, is simplistic enough in design.

She is set apart, she does not stand apart. Obi-Wan wonders if that has political ramifications for her, wonders which Queen has it easier – the elected child of Naboo in all her finery, or the woman on the throne most of her adult life and with the confidence to wear simplicity like a badge?

“A pleasure to meet you, Master Jedi.”

Bail gestures as the Queen extends her hand for a shake. “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“What a pleasant name!” Breha Organa has a nice voice. Soft and melodic and Obi-Wan immediately feels nothing but warmth and happiness for whoever her children may be. In the Force, Breha has the countenance of a woman who not only wants for motherhood, but would be genuinely so _good_ at it. Her children would know love and peace and happiness. They would not, if she could prevent it, know war.

“I must admit, in the creche it was something of a sticking point. My friend, Quinlan, started calling me Ben to mitigate the worst of it.”

Breha’s laugh is gentle. “Well, we will only call you as you wish to be called, no matter how that is!”

She sits him down and offers him a tea that, while sweet on its initial taste, has a nice bite to it. Sharp and hot and almost like one he had gotten from a Mando’ad when he slipped away from his Master on a mission and showed his face in a Mando bar.

It had been three rounds of silent sabacc with one of the elders there before anyone approached him. And then they had given him the tea, asked him about his Code, and he had made something of an in. Certainly not enough for any diplomatic contact, nor for any pleasantries when he ran into that same Mando nearly a year later.

But he, at sixteen, had a friend for an evening while his Master did work he deemed to sensitive or too specialized for Obi-Wan’s capabilities. Having just come off one of the episodes that had followed him since Melida/Daan, Obi-Wan wondered if he had been slighted or spared.

When the tea burned and reminded him what _life_ felt like, he had found he didn’t care either way. This tea, while perhaps not as sharp and not so quick to burn its way through the sinuses, was still a nice reminder.

“We have an old practice on Alderaan… it isn’t practiced over much, not anymore, but it seems to have caused some problems. I know no one alive to have done this, but as we are running into these problems we were hoping a non-partial researcher and mediator might help smooth things over.”

“What is this practice?”

“In social arrangements where children happen but are unwanted, Alderaan offers programs to match those children with parents who _do_ want them. With all the interbreeding across species and the inbreeding in our early history, we do run into our share of infertility problems – it is better, then, that children be adopted out and a small fee or restitution be paid to the parent or parents of said child.

“Earlier in our history, it was often far more exploitative. Children would be sold to people looking. And the sellers were not always in a position to vet the buyer.”

She doesn’t need to tell Obi-Wan much about how that would end. The fact she or her family, there’s no telling how recent this is without further research but if it still happens in the capital he would bet it’s within his lifetime or his Master’s, transplanted the tradition so carefully is commendable.

He remembers the regrets he felt, after everything with Satine, when her people looked on in suspicion because she shirked the traditions with the promise of new ones. He had wondered then, as he still does, if that was not fanning flames across the Mandalore system against her leadership.

“You have a trafficking ring?”

Breha’s lips press. “I hope not. I’m hoping this is simply a matter of a poorer family too proud to ask for help sending their child off to someone looking and desperate. I am, therefore, hoping that when it comes to tracking down this child you can help and that we can prevent much in the way of legal action.”

Breha is kind. She is so kind, and she has a heart that beats in the Force against harming others. She would have made a spectacular Jedi, almost makes the cut in sensitivity alone.

She’s too intertwined in the fate of her planet, though, and for that the Jedi would have rejected her. Even if she was taken to the Temple, it would have been for teaching until she was thirteen with the understanding she, as a member of prominent Noble House on Alderaan, would likely have to return and leave her friends behind.

Perhaps her parents had been kinder, or perhaps his own had some knowledge of things he didn’t. Perhaps some taboo of Stewjoni culture that would have made a Force-sensitive child too much hassle. He can only wonder.

Breha’s description of families dealing with unwanted children through adoption sounds like something that should be standard. But the Republic, when it once tried something similar, never quite made it work.

Breha makes for lighter topics, promising that _in the morning_ there will be sources for Obi-Wan to start on. He wants to start now, wants to stretch his mind into Alderaanian customs and start learning, but he doesn’t want to spit on her hospitality either.

Bail laughs as he sees the look on Obi-Wan’s face, all genial as he puts a hand on his shoulder. “I have a feeling we will get along well. I, too, enjoy the library and often more than I do people. The traditions are far from new to me, but I hope you will enjoy the learning.”

It’s one of the kindest things someone has said to him in a long time. After dinner, when he is in the privacy of a room he has checked for any and all bugs, he feels it weigh in his heart.

His Master had been a good man. Stern, disciplined. He challenged Obi-Wan in ways that forced him to grow and expand his skills and move past the rough-shod and impulsive thirteen-year-old he had taken on after Bandomeer.

He had been a good Jedi, too. Is still a good Jedi, given Bant thinks he will wake up, will survive after what Maul did to him.

For all of that, they had never truly gotten along. Not like Quinlan and Thome had, or Luminara had with her Master.

(He was never that parent that Obi-Wan so quietly wished for. He was always just this shade of distant to make Obi-Wan work harder for any approval, any praise. It had driven Obi-Wan. It had pushed him.)

Obi-Wan made do. He got up and moved on, moved forward. He didn’t stop because something hurt.

It had gotten him this far.

He knows there’s a Mando’a word for that. He can’t recall what it is as he falls asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things on Alderaan are not quite right.

The Alderaan palace library is massive. Obi-Wan is directed to some books to learn what he needs of the history and customs before he meets with the investigative squad to learn what they’ve found. It takes a few hours to parse through, but he makes quick work of skimming what he needs and makes a mental note to meditate on all of it in the evening to sort it all out. Alderaan is very different from Coruscant. For all they value peace, they, like the Naboo, will take up arms if they find their well-being threatened.

The lead investigator is an older woman with long hair pulled back in braids that pin to her head. She makes quick work of introducing herself as Eira Shana, a long-time friend of the Organa family. The other investigators defer to her. While the suspicion is not overt, it is certainly there. A Jedi intervening is not necessarily frowned upon, but they are not inclined to bring an outsider into their matters.

She gives him the information she has and sits across from him in the library. The files are all on datapads, but there are a few things that stand out. First, there is not much on the child missing, despite being the grandchild of an official. The second is there are notes that would seem to reference other cases.

_c.r. CF 9417, 7 y/o ml. Twilek_

_c.r. CF 9682, 12 y/o fm. Human  
_

_c.r. CF 10543, est. 3 mo n/a. Human_

Cross-reference notes to specific case files, not that those were provided. He waits until Eira has dismissed her team to their own tasks – talk to this person, look into this lead, ask after this individual – before he says a thing to her that could challenge her lead in the case. He is not here to disrupt Alderaanian justice, merely to assist; he needs Eira to listen to him and not try to assert herself over him. 

He would be remiss if he did not point out that this is more than ‘researching a custom involved in a legal dispute’. Nevertheless, he bites his tongue on any accusation of misleading the Order. 

“You don’t think this is a singular misplaced child.”

She grimaces. “I’ve been seeing the signs of something bigger for a while now. I didn’t want to drop it on Queen Organa until I had something solid, but when rumors go around a minister’s daughter got pregnant and the child disappears it tends to move your schedule up.”

He had been told that it was someone close to the Queen, but details were lacking.

“Have you spoken to the daughter? Or the Minister?”

Eira scoffs. “No.”

“Why not?”

Obi-Wan is genuinely curious. He spent so much of his time isolated in the Temple as a youngling, only with his crechemates and other Jedi. These cultures… they’re fascinating to him. Where Luminara and Quinlan and Bant had been brought to the Temple around three and four, and were still connected to their birth cultures, the only other Stewjoni Jedi known to have a knowledge of the culture had died when Obi-Wan was eight. He had not been interested in teaching a ‘hot-headed upstart’ if he didn’t think the child would make it; by the time Obi-Wan reached padawan the opportunity to learn was gone.

 _You will return one day, if you keep acting like this. Then you can ask them yourself._ Those had been the Master's words. Not spoken in anger, per say, but certainly with a heat in them to deter Obi-Wan from asking again. 

“It’s…” She shakes her head. “Part of it is a long-term familial rival. They will not open the door to a Shana if they think I’m accusing them of engaging in child trafficking. The second part of it is that that isn’t how things were ever handled here.

“Queen Breha is helping smooth it over, but it might be 30 years before we get to where people cooperate in investigations.”

“May I ask what prompted the hesitance?”

He has to be careful. He has overstepped in the past, and if he isn’t careful he will do it again and throw the entire mission to shit. He would admit to having done as much almost as frequently as his master, especially before he started refining his negotiation and diplomacy skills as he aged. It would be best to do things right, if he can, to prove the Council’s faith in Knighting him was not misplaced.

Eira considers him. “Queen Breha is nice. Someone from outside might even say soft.

“She won her throne in combat, though. Her family was supposed to bow before the last King of Alderaan and she said no. She said if he wanted her family, he had to kill her first. And when they met on the field, she was the one left standing and he had a vibroblade through his neck. That was years ago, but we all remember it.”

“And the last King…?”

“Was a cruel and sick bastard of a man, at least within Alderaan’s atmosphere. He kept up images well enough off-world. We’re better off for his death, I guarantee you.”

That answers as many questions as it still leaves Obi-Wan. Breha is not too much older than himself, and yet they heard nothing of this in his politics courses. Perhaps, while he is here, he will use any time not on the investigation to learn more. If not, he’ll wait until he is back at the Temple, if he stays long enough to visit the Archives. A violent regime change ought to have been mentioned.

He treads down one of the stacks of datapads looking for something specific. He calls to Eira, “You said this was an old tradition, but was it ever formalized?”

There is a book there he had seen referenced. _The Strings of Custom: Alderaanian Parenting and Family._ A standard academic text, but if he was right about this…

“It had a name, sure, but that was the extent of it.”

Obi-Wan nods and asks the name.

“Balac.”

Opportunity, in Mando’a – that’s his first impression. A quick glance at an Alderaanian-Basic dictionary suggests it means something like ‘wiggle room’. It’s listed in the book’s index with a long list of citations across the entire book. Skimming through them will take him an hour at most, but if Eira is right then he might be wasting his time trying. And given that ever so small difference in meaning, Obi-Wan finds himself wondering if this child was even still alive by the time he had been assigned the mission, much less made it to Alderaan. 

“I think your fears might not be so unfounded, Madam Shana.” Obi-Wan pulls up the table of contents and cross references chapter titles and the page locations he remembers.

_History of Parenting on Alderaan, Title location 239._

_Balac, history of – 245, 996_

_Shameful Beginnings, Title location 984._

_Balac, consequences 998-1006_

The consequences, that is where he starts. There are maps of worlds that to this day do not trust Alderaan, there are lists of trade embargos that Alderaan has been working its way through renegotiating, and there is a reference to a more comprehensive list of consequences to the children that get caught on the back-end of Balac. Those that make it back to their homeworld often have lasting traumas with the manifestations running the gamut of suicidal ideation and behavior to aggressive tendencies.

It is not promising.

“Was Alderaan ever formally involved with Mandalore?”

“Our planet’s population started from an off-shoot sect of Mandalorians.” Eira sidles up to look at the pad over his shoulder. She is taller than him by three inches. “They didn’t agree with the Foundling Creeds.”

That would…

Obi-Wan had respected the Mandalorian traditions around child-rearing once he heard them and learned of them. Traditions that said that finding a child that needed care meant taking care of them, meant adopting them as your own in all the ways that mattered. It was such an engrained response from what he had read and learned - children were everyone's responsibility. 

Disagreeing with the Foundling Creeds, combined with corruption or desperation or both, and he can see how the foundations for a trafficking ring might be lain. How someone could exploit a system like the one on Alderaan.

“What changed?” Something is missing, he can feel it. The Force is nudging him to run, to question others and to just _move_.

“What do you mean?”

“You say the early Alderaanians disagreed with the Foundling Creeds, and yet you also said this tradition was meant to send unwanted children to families.”

Eira sighs. “It wasn’t necessarily to send them to wanting families. Now, that is the goal. In the early days and through until around 70 years ago, especially before our medical facilities reached their current state, it was a way to get rid of another mouth to feed. Or a way to save reputation in the face of an unwanted or undesirable pregnancy.

“It wasn’t about the child, it was about utility.”

That explains it then. Eira makes quick work of pulling her work together and guiding Obi-Wan out of the library. “If you think we have a trafficking ring on our hands, we have to be careful. I can’t promise the Minister will open the door, but if he does you have to ask the questions. You cannot show any preference either way – you’re here as a mediator not as an investigator.”

“Asking the questions is usually seen as investigating.”

Eira rolls her eyes. “Off-worlders. The Minister will be well aware you’re asking the questions I gave you. If I need a follow-up, then I’ll ask it.”

It’s awfully convoluted.

“I suppose this has to do with the feud with your family?”

“It’s not a feud, but yes. It’s called being polite, here, Jedi.” She guides him towards the palace exit. “Let’s get some lunch and we can prepare.”

He is so used to moving, constantly. Thrown at each individual challenge on a mission to make the grander plan so much simpler. Now he’s one-on-one and he has a lot more to answer for.

“Sounds delightful.”

At least Eira will make interesting company. He has a feeling she has some interesting stories to tell when she isn’t being brusque and unrelenting on the exactly precise way by which they have to conduct this investigation. Cultural diversity and relativism is all well and good, but Obi-Wan wonders why take the extra steps and time when the victims are children and unaccounted for.

It feels like he is wasting time. The walk toward the marketplace is uneventful, but once again he finds himself enticed by that smell.

 _Heturam_.

Eira notices. She has calmed down from her earlier frustration in their walk towards the market. She laughs when she sees his head turned towards the stall with _Skraan_ scrawled across it both Mandalorian script and Aurebesh. “I’ve heard it’s good. We still get some of the old school Mandos around, and some of their riduur, the ones that stay on planet anyway, they started serving the stuff.”

Alderaanian food, if last night was anything to go by, was fairly bland but favored sweet or salty flavor pallets.

Obi-Wan craves that burning in his sinuses. Quinlan had called him a half-damned masochist for it when Obi-Wan had cooked some Mandalorian once, not long after his and Qui-Gon's mission guarding Satine Kryze. Obi-Wan had thought he did a very good job toning the spice _down_.

They sidle up and Eira shakes her head. “I’m getting something sane. If you’re still alive when you leave here, I’ll be eating my lunch at the pavilion.”

The pavilion she’s talking about is a few meters away. Nothing seriously far and in the shade of some beautiful trees. As nice a spot as any.

It feels entirely too calm.

The woman at the wait-bar nudges him when he orders a small meat plate, spice level at heturam.

“You sure on that one, kid?”

“I’ve missed it.”

She has beskar’gam on her person that has orange-red paint on it with some small green accents and graying brown-copper hair. Her face is lined with age and with some scarring, but otherwise she seems like a lovely individual. Her helmet is within arm’s reach, so he assumes this is her establishment. What he has read of Mandalorian culture, she would not be baring her face unless she was confident in her own safety.

The Force around her dances. It’s sad, slower than what it might have once been, but Obi-Wan gets the distinct impression she was once a very mirthful person. In his experience, if they don’t peg him as _jetii_ within moments of meeting him, many Mando’ade are.

“Oh?”

“My friends think I’m nuts.”

“Because you are. Dini’la to your core. But most jetii would have to be to walk into a Mando place.”

“I mean no harm. I came for the food, I promise.”

She laughs at that and claps his shoulder with a hand. “Everyone who promises no harm brings you harm in the end.” She gestures at the girl behind the counter and speaks directly to her. “Dul hokaanir par kaysh.”

“That’s not necessary, I can pay.”

“Jetii, I knew some of your kind after Galidraan. The ones that left. You don’t get paid, and if and when you do it isn’t much. Take the discount.”

By all accounts she should be pushing him out of her restaurant. Some of the others in beskar’gam certainly look like they want to. Hands have started flitting towards weapons, and helmets are finding their ways towards heads. Talking about the ones who left after Galidraan alone is a sign he isn’t wanted here. He is a symbol of a continued evil against the Mandalorian people and Obi-Wan, for all he wasn’t even there (would have been cut down if he was, if he hadn’t been injured and held up in medical, Master Qui-Gon always said as much)

“Vor entye.”

“No need.” She cuffs his shoulder again. “Give me your name, we’ll call it even.”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

He should have given her a pseudonym. He knows it the second the words leave his mouth.

He doesn’t much care, and it seems the Force doesn’t either. She laughs lightly at it, the Force bubbling alongside her in what Obi-Wan assumes is its own laughter and keeps some idle chatter with him while he waits for his food. He has to wonder what hers is, but he knows that if his name is what gets him half off of some decent food then he isn’t about to get hers without its own price.

“If we ever meet again, Kenobi, let it not be in the field.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mandalorian: 
> 
> _heturam_ : mouth burn; a sought after feeling in Mandalorian cooking   
> _Dul hokaanir par kaysh_ : Author derived, means "Half off for this one". She's telling her employee to cut the rate.   
> _jetii_ : Jedi   
> _Vor entye_ : "Thank you" but literally translates to "I accept debt", which is why the Mandalorian (you'll get her name soon, promise) rebuffs him.
> 
> Did I make Breha a badass? Absolutely. She deserves it and I always got the vibe that Bail's wife was badass so I wanted it to be true. Will that shit into existence and all that, because this is as much for myself as it is for all of you. 
> 
> If you want to chat, come drop me an ask or a message on putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com! I am pretty good about responding to messages within a day or two, max!


	3. Chapter 3

The lunch is exactly as heturam as he had hoped. It burns his sinuses and brings a clarity to him he has been missing since Naboo. Eira rolls her eyes over her sweet-roll and fruit, but they share what little pieces of themselves they can while they plan the questioning.

“If you’re sure she’s gotten rid of the child to avoid embarrassment, they likely were taken off-world quickly.”

“But that backfired.” Eira’s fork spears another piece of fruit and she points it toward Obi-Wan. “You sure you don’t want something to counter that?”

“Positive.” He takes another bite of the spicy food and barely blinks at it. “And yes, it did. But if no one had noticed that she was pregnant and she had hidden away a little more thoroughly, it wouldn’t have and no one would be looking for the child.”

“You think someone has been doing this a while?”

“I think a Minister doesn’t just find out who to go to unless someone has established contacts. And I think even on the best of planets with the kindest of people you’ll still find those that will sell out others and look the other way for a profit.”

Alderaan is known across much of the galaxy for being a place that is _good_. The Force even reminds him of it, as dark as his thoughts are, that most of the people here are kind people doing what they can. Being small beacons in a galaxy swirling under a mounting darkness. Qui-Gon can tell him to live in the moment all he wants; that doesn’t change the fact he has been having dreams since before Naboo of dark cloaks and darker times. Of war and bloodshed and watching _sons, his sons. His brothers, his men. Watching them dying._

All his dreams end with a burning sensation in his chest. On his chest? He isn’t sure, but he feels the burning under his right collar bone for mere seconds after waking every time.

Jedi are not supposed to get attached, but Obi-Wan has never been a very good Jedi. He knows that if this is coming, he has to prepare for the worst. He wants to prevent that coming to pass. He does. He doesn’t know how, when every other time he has had visions what they foretold came to pass anyway. He does his duty, or what he sees as his duty, and meets the blunt end of what the Force spends weeks showing him long enough to stun him for the swiping cut of the consequences.

Obi-Wan sets the thoughts aside, releases the anxieties into the Force as he does, and focuses on the mission. A missing child. Potentially, multiple missing children. And if they have been trafficked, some of them are dead, and some of them are likely slaves on the Outer Rim. Whatever he does, Obi-Wan knows he cannot save them all, is already too late for so many.

Their lunches finished within the next few moments, Obi-Wan makes quick work of discarding the packaging.

Eira is glaring him down, a friendly glare, but one nonetheless. “Is eating spicy Mando food and not looking like your face is on fire a Jedi thing? Because if so, that’s just not fair.”

“I believe we have more pressing concerns.” Obi-Wan laughs at her huff. “But no, it is not related to the Force.”

“Freaky.”

It stings, just a bit. Obi-Wan breathes it out into the Force with everything else. “Well, I do believe we have a Minister to speak to.”

And his daughter. Who gave up her child. Obi-Wan wonders if she did it willingly, or if she was coerced. Did she miss her child, was there regret? It was not his decision, not his reputation. Still, he wonders if this child could ever forgive their mother.

He is not proud to admit he has yet to forgive his own parents. Even with such a privileged upbringing as he had in the Jedi Temple, he has never known what it was to be held by his mother. He has never known his father’s voice or temper, never known a family unit the way he sees so many enjoy it. And while his crechemates seem to have used their limited memories from before the Order to find their own forms of family, it feels like the experience has always eluded Obi-Wan just so.

The Force is the closest thing, in some regards. Even as he regrets his parents’ choices it wraps itself around him while he walks towards the Minister’s house. It tries to soothe the emotional aches in ways that are as familiar to Obi-Wan as breathing.

The Unifying Force had always been something that clung to him. It moved on him like a second skin when he was younger. He can still call it to him in the same way, but now he is out of practice. He has shirked its wisdom and its offers of comfort in favor of trying to live up to expectations. Of trying to understand the Living Force better, of trying to expand his knowledge and capability in a way befitting a Jedi Knight.

He extends a metaphorical hand to it as they turn down a cobblestone road. It squeezes that hand, affectionate, and then lets go as they approach the house. It is large, a mansion even. The curtains are drawn shut, the manicured lawn is tended by a gardener, and the ostentatious doorbell chimes and echoes within like no one is home.

Obi-Wan can feel the echoes of people inside. He knows they are hiding away.

Eira scowls. “If they don’t answer, we don’t knock again.”

“Why?”

“Alderaanian custom is you get three shots at this. We can force the issue when we have proof, but until then, we have got to be careful.”

Obi-Wan nods. It hadn’t been included in any of the preparatory readings, so it may be something informal or something taken for granted so much that people do not even think there is need to mention it. That… it is a great interpersonal policy, he will admit. Perhaps, if there had been a “three times” rule he and Qui-Gon would not have had so many fights from one of them needling the other on any number of issues.

He won’t pretend it is a good policy for justice, though. Won’t pretend there is not a huge gaping flaw in that maybe they don’t have evidence, but their primary reason for coming was to question and learn. Accusations could come later, if and when the need arose. If they could never question the Minister and his daughter, they may not make any headway. He spent much of his afternoon contemplating that as he worked other angles of the investigation. 

He ate dinner once more with Bail and Breha, both of whom inquired about the investigation. Obi-Wan’s stomach sank.

“We are pursuing an avenue of thought that may be… jarring for civilians.”

Breha straightens and he sees, in the set of her face and the lines of her posture, every inch of the woman that would fight to bring her people into a better age, the woman that could and did take her throne in combat. “You have a theory.”

He had a theory, yes. He had no evidence, also true. But if his investigation kept being curtailed, then he was going to waste two weeks in Alderaan and a child out there would still be separated both from family and from any semblance of actual childhood, if they lived.

“We have a theory, but I am unsure if it is wise to air it too liberally until we have more evidence.” He takes a sip of his water to quell his nerves. It doesn’t work. He already tried releasing it into the Force. “As it is, we have run into some logistical blocks. If word got around, well…”

Bail is the one to step up. Every bit as serious as the wife whose surname he took upon marriage, he has the bearing of the kind of politician that would do well on Coruscant. He can navigate these waters more comfortably than Obi-Wan ever has. “If word got around, it would get misheard and misinterpreted and make your job twice as hard.”

“That is a concern, yes.”

Bail and Breha agree with him, and insist he remain careful and vigilant as he learns his way around the customs and traditions that are holding up the investigation.

He isn’t wrong about the customs delaying the investigation. For four more days he works tirelessly alongside Eira but is thwarted by the logistics of traditions and manners at every turn. He wants to be respectful, but how could these things come between a child and their well-being?

Bail, when Obi-Wan asks as much in a moment of weakness, voices his own carefully-tempered agreement. “Ultimately, though, things are slow to change. We are doing what we can now, that we might learn where to blur the line between propriety and the pursuit of justice in the future.”

Sometimes he forgot what it was that had felt so freeing on planets like Melida/Daan. For all he had been in a war, and all he knew he still carried that trauma in his bones and soul, he had been able to act on his conscience there. The Force hummed in the background, almost encouraging the line of thought for all he felt it tug him in another direction.

That evening is spent at a desk in the library before he goes to bed. After five days of close work, Eira made it clear this morning she was pursuing private avenues and that Obi-Wan would be most helpful doing more research.

Turning in his bed, the hour long since past that anyone reasonably would be up, Obi-Wan gets back up. He makes quick work of making himself presentable before wandering the residence. The windows are left with their curtains open – _dangerous,_ part of him whispered, thinking of Naboo _, infiltration point._ It’s not a very nice thought, for a Jedi, but it is one that crosses his mind all the same – and he could see lights on in the marketplace, could see people milling about. Some even look like they might be dancing, or at least swaying.

Bail had said he should try to see it… Perhaps going out and clearing his head is not a bad plan. There is no one to tell him not to, after all. 

The guard at the door raises a brow when he walks by.

Obi-Wan nods to him. “Just going for a walk.”

He smirks. “Kid, you’re allowed to go have fun.” He shakes his head. “Just don’t give yourself a hangover, alright?”

It still felt wrong to consider going out and doing something unassociated with survival or his mission. The man taps his shoulder. From what he could tell, it was another Alderaanian custom, but one no one had explained or thought about. Shoulder touches were common sights around the city.

“Kid, go easy on yourself. The Queen asked you here, yeah, but she knows how sticky this stuff can be. Even if you don’t change anything, your help is appreciated.”

His help? He had barely done anything but run headfirst into roadblock after roadblock. And not changing anything? It felt wrong to even consider it.

It felt like being told to leave Melida/Daan when he knew he could help.

The Mandalorian stall is still open, and when he comes in he sees the same armor and the same woman as before. It is her store, and she keeps her buycir off. What little he knows, Obi-Wan is fairly sure that says something, given their peoples’ long and checkered history.

“You’ve returned, Kenobi.” She smiles at him. Her lips are pressed thin as she does, but it is still a smile nonetheless. “You're becoming something of a regular.”

“I can’t help it when the food is always so good.” It is true, Obi-Wan has has gotten one or two more lunches here when he isn’t holed up in the library doing what he can to research. She has continued to find ways to either give him more than the mandated serving or try and discount his food, always with some snarky comment. He has a suspicion that after the last time, where he forced her to take the full price of the meal by handing it over and deliberately making it out before change could be made, she has a new trick up her sleeve. She gestures to the seat beside her.

“So, tell me what brings you here.”

He could tell her he can’t sleep, a half-truth. Or he could tell her his suspicions.

The Force has its own opinions, prompting him to speak, and the words are out of his mouth before he can consciously stop them. “I think there’s human trafficking out of Alderaan, and I think they deal in unwanted children. I can’t prove anything, but…”

“But children go missing and people don’t ask questions.” She shakes her head. He still doesn’t have a name. “Ours have been keepin’ an ear on the ground. Of course, you can’t necessarily take our word to the Queen and have it carry much weight; we’re off-worlders and travelers mostly. But I can point you in the right direction.

“Try to track down a man named Artem Klosch.”

“Is he…?”

The woman scoffs. “I’m Mando’a, _jetii_.” She practically spits the word at him at the same time she gestures for Adela, the girl working the bar tonight, who often takes afternoon shifts, to bring him a drink. It burns like the food, but one more time Obi-Wan finds himself enjoying it. “We don’t run with traffickers. Especially not in children, and _especially_ not in Clan Eldar.”

Eldar. Well, he has a name and his Mandalorian, while rusty and largely academic, would give him the leeway to make guesses on how to address her if the need ever became more formal than “the Mando woman who keeps giving him food and drink because she thinks he’s too thin”.

“So I have to find Artem Klosch and I have no way of knowing what this lead entails?”

“Artem Klosch may not be a trafficker,” Eldar leans in, “But he keeps his finger on the pulse of Alderaanian crime. Covers for most people, including the beroya that find their way through these pars, as long as he thinks it won’t disturb too much. He’ll drop hints on political targets or actors, maybe if a cultural figure is about to get caught in it, but he has a mouth like a steel trap.

“He has some soft spots, though, and you can get to him through those.”

They continue chatting while he finishes the small meal she finds a way to squirrel more food onto his plate while he's distracted listening, as well as to get him to have a couple drinks while he's there. It's late, she says, and he's young. He should at least let his mind relax a little, if he wants to be of any use. 

Obi-Wan's thoughts keep circling around Artem Klosch as he gets the credits out to pay for food and two drinks.

“None of that. You go get some karking sleep and maybe you can pay in the morning.” She glowers at him. When he tries again, she closes his hand around the money and then bats his shoulder gently with her hand. "Tomorrow." 

His walk back to the Queen’s residence is through chilled night air. His robes keep out the worst of the chill, but even so he could feel the heat from the restaurant leaving him. The Force still swims around him, embraces him with that _whole_ feeling that came with being around people, but the physical chill and loneliness presses in even as he picks up the pace.

He wonders if Anakin was getting on well in the Temple. He promised to teach him a few things when he got back. He should plan what, but even so he knows he has some time.

He goes straight back to his room only to walk out to the library. There will be caf in the kitchens around four, and he knows the kitchen staff are at least somewhat endeared to him. They’ll chide him for not eating more (or sleeping more), but they’ll ultimately give in when he asks for a cup.

He just needs to make it through two more hours and then he will have the periodic cup of caf to push him through the next ten.

He pulls out a holopad and connects to the ‘net. There is very little about Artem Klosch. Precious little else on Alderaanian crimes or criminal networks. He supposes it makes sense, yawning as he thinks on it. There is some room for crime to happen, but Alderaan’s humanitarian reputation relies on people assuming they know what they’re doing on their own planet. If this kind of thing got out… well, he is not intending to let it. He is looking to help the children, though, if he can.

He catches himself nodding off at the same time he notices he has unilaterally expanded his mission. He was here to research and investigate. Minimal involvement, at best, and the Council had been clear on that. This was meant as a brief entrance into the life of a knight, not a full fledged course on making field decisions for himself. He had been told that he would still be supervised, even, on some missions.

This one was too low level to warrant that, though.

He didn’t catch himself the next time he nodded off. He wakes up to Bail's gentle laugh as his brain slowly catches up. In the harsh light of morning, he has no regrets. He plans how best to inform the Council. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mandalorian: 
> 
> heturam: Mouth-burn; desired in Mandalorian cooking   
> buycir: helmet   
> jetii: Jedi   
> beroya: bounty hunters
> 
> I wasn't kidding about this being found family. It's just gonna be a couple chapters before more of them show up.   
> Also, now you have half a name for the Mandalorian character. You'll get more soon, promise (literally next chapter). And soon, Obi-Wan will be off Alderaan and having some adventures of his own.


	4. Chapter 4

Obi-Wan attempts to bring the lead to Eira, but she shuts him down. She says they cannot bring the investigation forward to any contacts or names in organized crime, that there is too much room for things to go wrong if they do. They need more evidence, if they can find it, but she makes sure to remind Obi-Wan he is just a research consultant. She starts shutting him out of the investigation, only giving him search terms and other things to look up on the holo and in the library. 

He is not welcome here. He has, at some point, overstepped and he is not sure exactly where. He suspects it started with the Minister, but he knows something else must have happened, too. 

He looks for Klosch on his own. He knows the importance of politics, knows it shows up in any group of people eventually, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. He may have to keep it off and away from official channels, but that was why he brought spare clothing. Things that would not mark him as a Jedi to anyone looking – he would just look like a university student with an odd level of interest in underworld crime. A student pursuing studies in criminal justice, perhaps. With a Core accent like his, he could even pass it off as some sort of comparative studies project: prevalence of underworld crime on Coruscant and Alderaan. That is as much detail as Obi-Wan is comfortable pre-planning before he knows he will start forgetting things.

The cover works well enough in the end. He spends hours combing through seedier sections of Alderaan’s capital and making some more thorough contacts on the promise of anonymity. “I’m just telling your stories and learning about your side of things,” he tells them, “And if you don’t want your name included, who am I to challenge that?”

Criminals are more than willing to talk if they can brag _and_ not get retribution for it. And Obi-Wan has always enjoyed a good story. He stops keeping track of all the names after a while, just taking in their stories and their histories as he keeps digging for more information. 

He finds Artem Klosch several days later in a seedy bar on the other side of the city. It takes losing Eira a few times, because the second she heard the name she shut down and got more suspicious. Once she thought he was poking around where he shouldn’t be, she watched his every move as much as she could. It meant several nights without enough sleep to dig up this information; all for the better, in some senses, given tongues are looser when there is alcohol involved, and later hours meant being able to grease the conversational wheels of those who might have information to offer. He has an image to maintain as part of the Order, sure, but Obi-Wan has learned many things from his time with Qui-Gon.

And one of them was that sometimes the dirty way was the fast way. Certainly, with his window for being on Alderaan nearly up and having gotten no further in his attempts to talk to the Minister and his daughter, Artem is the one who will at least rule out a few things.

He’s a wiry man. Human, or mostly human anyway. He glances at Obi-Wan and laughs. “Long time since Jedi wanted to talk to me.”

“I thought I did a better job covering it up.”

Artem walks behind him, prompting Obi-Wan to tense a bit while he moves to the liquor cabinet in this small store that acts as a front for his operation. He pours two glasses of brandy and sits down at the counter, gesturing for Obi-Wan to do the same. One of the glasses slides over to Obi-Wan with a little push from Artem. “You do, if you’re looking at a normal person. Criminals’ll spot you a mile out. Posture too straight, accent too Core. Doesn’t help that you wear those clothes like they’re your damn enemy, which tells anybody looking that you’re not used to them. Keep tugging like that at the hem, and people assume it’s that they’re tight. Pull that shit together and you’re some kind of loose-clothed, posh prick. It's in my self-interest to assume the worst, so, Jedi.”

He had not even noticed some of those behaviors. For all intents and purposes, he thought he had masked it well. Artem gestures to the glass and Obi-Wan takes a small sip and hopes it isn’t poisoned.

“I’m looking for the missing children.”

Artem frowns. “I don’t deal in kids.”

“So I’ve been told. I’ve also been told,” if there is one thing Obi-Wan can do it is pad an ego. As they got older, Quinlan had laughed at his 'honey tongue' and Bant had called him charming. “That you know the most about Alderaanian crime, especially if it’s organized. I can’t guarantee any reward, but I can give you my word I’ll go after the children.”

Force, he hopes it’s enough. Hopes that Artem’s conscience pushes him to take the offer even if there isn’t much if anything in it for him.

“Some of them are dead. I keep tabs on them as far out as my contacts off-world go; it’s not much, especially if and when they leave the system, but it’s something.”

“So some of them stay in system?”

Artem looks pained. “Those are usually the ones that don’t live very long after, but yeah. Some of them stay in system.”

The Force recoils but it does not indicate any lack of honesty. There is, instead, a saddened air around it that pushes everything in Obi-Wan to respond by finding and helping as many children as possible. Failing that, he would at least endeavor to remove the organization behind the trafficking.

“What would you see done?”

“The bastards being gone will only last so long, but I have an acquaintance or three who can take advantage of the time gap and prevent the worst of it from starting back up. As for the kids, and don’t think I don’t know why the Jedi got involved – I’m counting the Minister’s grandkid in that group, too – I don’t know how much can be done. I know the locations of a few, but several of them are slaves. Even if you free them, their masters will just use their chips or their collars to destroy their lost 'merchandise’.”

Obi-Wan feels his chest constrict as the Force snaps around him. Anakin had been a slave not long ago, Obi-Wan remembers the fear in him. He remembers Anakin, on the ship and holding his chip’s controller, begging to stay awake when they removed it. He didn’t care about the pain, he cared about seeing it gone.

He would never have believed them otherwise.

Master Jinn had, in the face of a stubborn and inconsolable child, said that Anakin would have to make the choice himself. Had left Anakin in the Naboo medical bay where the removal took place before they finally returned to Coruscant after everything that happened. Obi-Wan had stayed by him, had held his hand, and had let him squeeze his until it felt like a finger or two might break. Local anesthetic could only do so much. Obi-Wan himself remembered the collar from the deep-sea mines. Remembered how he touched his neck so carefully for days after, wanting to _know_ it was gone. 

And several of these children were slaves. And they would die, unless Obi-Wan found a way to get them free.

“You see the problem.”

Yeah. He saw the karking problem.

“You’re saying it’s too late.”

Artem’s head sways from side to side. “It is and it isn’t. You’re not going to get all of them in one smooth run, I guarantee you that. I can give you the information, and maybe the Jedi can do something when they’ve got opportunities. But you’re better off making an opening for my people.”

He should feel tricked. Should feel like Artem is playing him into his hands, perhaps even trying to tarnish the reputation of the Jedi Order.

He doesn’t. The Force agrees with his read – Artem Klosch wants to help these kids. More than that, he wants this to stop and will do what he can to stop it. Organized criminal he may be, but Obi-Wan knows one can find honor even amongst thieves. 

“As long as my name is never mentioned…”

“Don’t worry. People thought I was working clean, they’d stop talking to me. Talk is pretty much all I got, and it ain’t cheap.” Artem puts a hand out, prompting Obi-Wan to shake. “You work out your politics, I’ll get you a partner.”

“A partner?”

“You’re going against organized crime all on your own. Fancy laser pointer or not, the keyword there is organized. You’re going to want help, and even if you don’t I’m not throwing some fresh-faced – what are you, seventeen? – seventeen-year-old into a fight without knowing someone’s watching his six.”

“I’m twenty.” 

“Still young enough to correct someone, and that’s too young in my book.”

“Mandalorians sent their young into battle as young as thirteen.”

“I’m not a karkin’ Mando, now, am I?” He shakes his head. “Look, kid. You’ve got a few days to pull your shit together. The Queen is gonna send you off-world once your contract with her expires. Are you going after these sick bastards or not?”

“I’m not leaving them to harm more children.”

That’s all Artem needs to hear. “Great. You know the Mando place near the Royal Residence? That’s where you’ll meet Ruusaan.”

He goes back to the palace that night with a name and with the barest skeleton of a plan forming.

He has two days, and the Queen smiles, all serene at him when those two days pass and he and Eira have managed to turn up nothing new.

“It was a long-shot, Obi-Wan. Do not trouble yourself. Unfortunately, these things do happen.” She places a hand on his shoulder. “We will continue to keep our ears open, to keep our hopes up. In the meantime, the work you have done is invaluable.”

It doesn’t feel like it.

Bail shakes his head. “None of that. You still got us some information about the channels people go through.”

Minimal, at best. Organized crime, as suspected.

“And you got intel on the prices people pay for their children to go missing, how they cover it up.”

All things he is more than certain Eira would have found herself with a little more time.

Nevertheless, when he walks out of the Royal Residence it is with Bail offering him unprompted assurances that Obi-Wan has his and the Queen’s respect. He had come, he had worked hard, and he had helped in the investigation for all their two week loan of a Jedi Knight (a new one, untested and unskilled all that he may be) had enabled him.

He walks with purpose towards the Mandalorian restaurant. Eldar is in her beskar’gam and pulls her helmet on. “Had a feeling Artem would be pointing you my way.”

The intel is in her hands. “I have the list of names and the shipping manifestos they use.”

“Are we sure we shouldn’t bring this to the Queen and her ministers?”

It’s been eating at him both days. He agreed to extrajudicial action in the hopes of long-term help on the matter, but perhaps he had been hasty. Impulsive, as he had often been chided for, even well after his youth.

The visions weren’t helping. He knew, on some level, that he should be living in the now. But the visions of a woman burning, her face obscured by the flames around her, the screaming of a man in the background. One of a mirage of children, bearing a single face, and crying for help. Crying as they died. Children whose faces were obscured, all of them reaching out and begging for help. They twisted his heart and he found himself picking at his food when he was not at the table of the royal family. He wouldn’t spit on their hospitality, even if he found it coming back up only hours later.

Obi-Wan steeled himself in the Force, tried to let the tension and weariness go out into it.

Eldar, and she must be the Ruusaan that Artem told him about given she was getting up to follow him, scowled. “No. If you’re too hut’uun for this, then tell me now so I can cut my losses.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “Only confirming our position.”

Eldar’s eyes narrow, considering. The store is still being manned, but only a fool would not notice the other Mando’ade watching them carefully. “We take it to the Queen and the Consort, they punish a minister or two. They do what they can, within the bounds of a system they created, because they’re _good people_ and good people function with rules.

“These assholes don’t work in a system they _don’t_ rule, and that means we have to play with and by their rules to take them down. Justice doesn’t mean shit if it doesn’t make a difference to the people hurt.”

Obi-Wan nodded. She shook her head when she looked down towards the main transit port. “Was someone supposed to be coming to pick you up?”

“Not that I am aware.”

He glances down the crowded market street. Indeed, there is a man in Jedi attire walking towards Obi-Wan. He cannot tell who it is from back here, but the brown robe and simple habit stand out on Alderaan.

“Drop the robe.”

“What?”

“Drop it and throw this on.”

It’s a brown-black leather jacket with a blue-gray lining. The lining looks deceptively light and he makes quick work of getting it on and using the closure over his tunic.

“Good. Come on.” She leads him back into the restaurant as the Jedi continues meandering down the path. Had the Council sent someone to debrief him? Was it someone stopping because they know he's on-world?

She leads him through the restaurant, small as it is, back through the kitchen and out into the alley. “You’re going to be running, and I expect you to keep up. He’ll get to the palace and start looking for you; we haven’t got much time.”

He runs behind her, but the jacket weighs him down and he has to use the Force, in some respects, to push him forward faster. The ship she takes him to is old, and if he recalls, it had been there gathering dust when he arrived.

She lets him on. There are pieces of other people, traces of them in the Force even, for all that it hasn’t moved in a long time.

“My family leaves things lying around when they’re here.” She clears off the co-pilots chair of a different discarded jacket and a set of vambraces that were opened up to install or modify some comms.

Obi-Wan takes the chair when she is finished and looks to her for command.

She puts the coordinates in the navigation system and glances over at him. “You were pretty keen on getting away. I half expected you to go off with the Jedi.”

“You pointed me to Klosch, and Klosch pointed me back to you for this. I…” He shook his head. “There are people stuck in all this. Children. And it's not going to stop unless someone does something. 

“I can’t go back to the Temple knowing _I_ could have done something.”

“Good thing, then. Because this might not be a quick-shot mission.”

Obi-Wan has a feeling she is right. “As long as I make a point to comm once in a while…”

“You’ll get in trouble.”

“If I space the communications right, I might dodge it.” He smirks towards Ruusaan. “They’ll just be glad I’m still be alive.”

She barks a loud and harsh laugh at that. “Well, then, Kenobi, welcome aboard the Tusk Cat.”

The Tusk Cat, a fitting name given the sigil painted on Ruusaan’s armor. “Glad to be of service.”

There aresigns of life in this ship, even if they’d gone stale. The Force hums around it, dancing over everything and marking it out to him as _family, home, people, belonging_.

He definitely made the right choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now you have her full name - Ruusaan Eldar. 
> 
> Mando'a  
> Ruusaan - popular Mando female name; means reliable  
> beskar'gam - armor


	5. Chapter 5

The Jedi Council heard Master Koon’s assessment with little fanfare. He had stopped on Alderaan to assist Kenobi in the last few hours of his work and to offer him transportation as he went through the system on the way to his own mission. He was to be taking Kenobi as his back-up, but that had proven impossible. A brown robe was found in the square, but Kenobi was said to have left already. Koon called to the Council for someone else to be sent on his mission while he returned to initiate the report of a missing Knight.

Koon reported that a kind, Rodian woman in a nearby restaurant said she had seen a guy that looked like Knight Kenobi before, but he had never stopped in. Eira Shana, the cultural liaison and investigative lead Obi-Wan had worked with, reported the opposite: he had visited the restaurant on different occasions for light meals and even seemed to get on at least somewhat with the staff at the establishment. Kenobi had left already, Koon had missed him by a mere hour or so.

That left one Knight unaccounted for and with counter-leads on where to start looking for him. 

Mace rubs his temples. Kenobi had gone missing, and the only lead was a Mandalorian restaurant he may have visited a few times.

He has to assign Skywalker soon – the boy needed more hands-on tutoring than anticipated. Perhaps they should have considered it, but his background as a slave on Tatooine meant he could not read Basic. He can write some words in Huttese, but is for all intents and purposes illiterate. He would need to be taught reading as well as some of the other Initiate-level material even if he started off as a Padawan learner.

Mace had hoped they could assign him to Kenobi. He is a calm man by nature, and a familiar face to Skywalker, who is doing his best to pretend all the sudden adjustments were not frightening him. He had been staying in Mace’s dorms, given Depa had recently made Knight and Mace had yet to be reassigned, and there are more than a few nights he has startled awake with nightmares Mace could only imagine. He never shares much, but he did take comfort in warm cocoa and quiet solitude the times Mace offered it. Oftentimes, Mace found those hours the easiest for teaching him. They were both too tired for any personality clashes, and it usually had Anakin asleep again within the hour.

If Kenobi does not return soon, and there is no guarantee he will given his comm had been shut off for three full days now, they would have to find someone else.

Quinlan Vos, despite the recent mess with his own Padawan, had been a good teacher. It was the mess after their mission on Ryloth that had put a wedge between Master and Padawan. Mace cannot fault either of them – while Quinlan had remembered Aayla, they both had been impaired by the use of the glitteryll. Even once they remastered their memories, there would have been problems.

He is also friends with Obi-Wan, and the two had a long relationship having been friends since they were younglings. It would be a touchstone for the two of them, a starting point until they settled into their own training bond more.

Anakin, speaking of, walks into the shared space with the calm and quiet he assumes Mace wants to see. There is nothing to be done there, Mace had tried to convince him that it was fine to be a literal child, given he was only nine.

The healers suggested he see the mental health specialists; convincing him would be its own matter.

Anakin pulls out his homework and stares at it. The farce would last until Mace put dinner down if he let it. It had taken him a day to realize that Skywalker wasn’t doing homework, just periodically turning pages.

“You do not have to pretend, Anakin.”

“I… I think I’m starting to get it.”

That is progress if the child was telling the truth. Unfortunately, like most children, Anakin wants the adults in his life to think him capable. Lying to give that impression is a behavior every youngling has to be taught to avoid, eventually.

“Anakin, you can ask for help.”

He mumbles his response.

“I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”

He sighs. “No one else has to ask for help for this stuff.”

“No one else spent nearly a decade in slavery before coming here. You’re adapting to a new life and learning new skills at an age that makes it far more difficult. You’re doing remarkably well.”

Mace likes kids. He genuinely does. Padawans and younglings were so often cut loose from the tradition and standard because they had yet to do it as anything other than rote ritual and they bring new ideas and thought to their studies and masters as a result.

“Do the Jedi free slaves?”

“I would think you’re an example of that.”

“But I’m just one slave. And there are thousands more, and we always thought that… well…” He scowls at his work. “We have stories and songs on Tatooine about people like the Jedi, but they’re always there to stop it.”

“You were just one slave.” Mace sits across from him and glances down at his homework. A primer on Republic history and the page is open to a chapter on anti-slavery laws. Undoubtedly, then, the lecture from that day would have been pressing some buttons. “And while I can’t say that we make a habit of freeing slaves, given we have to work within the laws of the planet we are on at the time, I will say that if you are in a situation where you _can_ free slaves the Council will not look unkindly on it. We are supposed to right wrongs, Anakin. Bring positive change to the galaxy.”

The boy looks long and hard at Mace. Most Initiates and Padawans his age are still reckless and run around laughing, bright energy in the Force. Anakin was by no means dark, but his life experience has tempered him. All of his energy festered inside after years of being told he had to behave under threat of death.

As much of a pain as Quinlan Vos could be for the Council, someone who has maintained their energy and lust for life well into their adulthood would be the perfect match for Anakin as his Master. And, perhaps, he can still rope Obi-Wan into helping with the training. Quinlan would be able to remind Anakin that he was a child while also teaching him there is most definitely a life beyond slavery, that he would not be going back. Obi-Wan can still learn who he is outside of a teacher; he would just be another positive influence in Anakin's life. 

Anakin considers what Mace had said while he fiddles with the datapad stylus before doodling. There must be something else bothering him. “Are you okay?”

Anakin keeps fiddling with the stylus. He had to talk Anakin out of dissecting the datapad and stylus with a promise that if he got his grades to passing Mace would find an old one for him to explore and learn from.

“My teacher said I wouldn’t be able to feel Obi-Wan in the Force from here, but I did. Until a couple days ago, it was super easy, too!” Anakin looks like he’s holding his panic back. “But… it went out.”

“What do you mean?”

This is concerning. It wouldn’t surprise Mace, given the way their meditations had gone. So far, Anakin could not really do the empty head meditations. He needed motion or he needed something to focus on. Obi-Wan being that focus would be nearly natural. For all Anakin enjoyed pestering Qui-Gon and spending time around him, Obi-Wan had become his navigation point. Mace may not have all the details, but something happened on Naboo to elevate Obi-Wan as compared to Qui-Gon; while the latter freed him from slavery and was in high esteem because of it, Obi-Wan was in his own category.

Qui-Gon Jinn was a hero to the boy. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a role model, was attainable.

Anakin is strong in the Force in a way few ever are, and if he can feel Obi-Wan from Coruscant it would certainly be a feat. But Mace doesn't know that he would question it, given what he knows of Anakin Skywalker's relationship to the Force.

Added to that, Plo had said something similar regarding Kenobi’s disappearance. He had sensed Knight Kenobi before it had suddenly dampened. He found the cloak shortly after, but not Kenobi.

Mace works to ease Anakin’s concerns. “He might have gotten called further away, making it harder to reach out to him.”

Anakin nods, still messing with his stylus. He looks down at the datapad before circling a word. “What’s this say?”

 _Enacted._ The full sentence is about the first Republic anti-slavery laws passed only for the inner core worlds.

“What do you think it says?”

Anakin picks through a few words around it and tries to sound out the word. Anakin wasn’t lying – he is starting to get a feel for it. A few more weeks and Mace is confident he will be able to pick his way through texts and books as much as he might like. It will be slow-going, but he will be able to do it. Practice will make him better, and it will be the start of what Mace hopes will be a long line of skills he picks up through tenacity and dedication. In the meantime, he has a feeling that there will soon be a lot of mechanics manuals checked out from the Archives.

He waits for the boy’s schedule to wrap around to bedtime. As far as Mace has seen, Anakin keeps pretty tightly to a schedule once it has been established. Certainly he has nights he will stay up and tinker with some mechanical thing or other Mace pretends not to see in his room. As long as Anakin keeps it out of common areas where Mace will have to say he saw it, he doesn’t mind him applying his mind to the droids and whatnot. It’s been beneficial, and the stories he has heard as a result (though no one has gotten enough evidence to pin it on Anakin, yet) have been hilarious.

Nevertheless, he has a freshly minted Knight _missing_ , and a yet-to-be-assigned Padawan who says his Force presence has blinked down, if not out.

Qui-Gon is his first stop. Recently released from the Halls of Healing, he is required to stay Temple-side for at least another month and lightly exercise to overcome his injuries. Even so, he is 60. Vokara has, privately, said she does not think him fit for the kinds of missions he once took. No, softer missions will be his mainstay if Mace has anything to say about it. Even with the Force, the human body can only take so much. 

Qui-Gon is petulant, though, so Mace finds himself waiting outside in the hall nearly two minutes while Qui-Gon no doubt debates the merits of opening the door this late at night.

Eventually, he does. Mace had made sure to use minimal shielding in order to make it clear – this was not an optional social call.

“How may I help you, Master Windu?”

“Your former padawan seems to have gone off grid. Any chance you can sense him?”

Qui-Gon’s smile is more pinched at that. “I’m afraid Knight Kenobi has not contacted me.”

This is why the Council put a hold on Jinn taking another padawan. His record is one Fallen, and two that became Knights and shortly thereafter limited or dropped contact. Both of whom he humiliated in one way or another.

“I didn’t ask if he had commed you, I asked if you could sense him. Don’t play an idiot, Jinn.”

Jinn’s smile fades and he invites Mace in. “I can sense him, but only just.”

“What do you mean _only just_?”

“I mean that Obi-Wan is alive, and there are times he is easier to sense. As far as I can tell, he’s fine. He’s further away from the Core, though, and there will come a time where he is far enough out that whatever is obscuring him will completely mask him from me.”

“Has he responded to your attempts to reach out?”

Jinn’s room has always smelled like plants. He is very in tune with the Living Force according to records, and according to rumor he wasn’t always this frustrating. Mace has to wonder what it was that pushed the man over the edge.

“I have not tried.”

“Your former padawan starts fading in the Force and you do not attempt to reach out?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard about our last communication.” Jinn’s hand waves in the air. “I assumed it would be unwelcome.”

Altercation is the better word. Obi-Wan, freshly Knighted, had gone to visit his Master, to give him his braid as was tradition. Instead, Qui-Gon rebuffed him and asked why he disobeyed orders to leave the man to die. Bant Eerin had approached Mace asking if she should recommend mediation from the mental health unit; he had said no, then, but wondered if there were deeper issues throughout the apprenticeship that should be addressed.

Nevertheless, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had not ended their conversation on polite terms. Obi-Wan was set to leave no less than an hour later.

Mace cannot imagine a situation wherein an argument with Depa would have him so frustrated or angry he would not reach out at the first sign of trouble, though.

And perhaps that is the issue at hand when it comes to Jinn and padawans. He is not, and never really has been, interested in the younglings of the Order. He was not a particularly good teacher, either. Taking a padawan was a privilege conferred on him by his rank; Mace wonders if they should have stopped him after Xanatos and after the dismissal of Feemor’s successes as a Jedi. Kenobi…

Kenobi is a gifted Knight. He would have been lost to them as an Agricorps member, or worse he would have died on Bandomeer, or Melida-Daan, or on any number of missions that were above his capability throughout his time as a student. That would have been a blow to the Order, and Mace cannot deny the Force had a hand in bringing Obi-Wan back into the Order’s arms time and time again.

He holds Jinn’s gaze longer than he probably should. When Jinn starts to squirm, he raises one brow. “If you have any updates to the situation, the Council expects to hear them.”

Jinn nods and sees Mace out. Mace has plans to spend a few hours in the Archives to whittle down what he can for where Kenobi might have gone. Alderaan is not as far from Coruscant in the Force as some might believe, but to be on the edge of perception might mean any number of things. Once again, Mace resists the urge to groan as he considers the inevitability that he will not be sleeping tonight. 

He has questioned it before. The Grandmaster of the Jedi Order was renowned. The question remained: why did Yoda’s lineage seem to have so many problems?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you wondering about Anakin.... Well. Here you go! If you have questions about creative decisions, feel free to drop them in the comments or reach out to me on tumblr.com at putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com. I take asks, I answer messages, etc. I'm pretty sure my submissions are even open if you want to just shitpost with me. 
> 
> To the person asking of Obi-Wan was a flight risk - well. If I didn't make it clear here, it's not that they worried about him being a flight risk. But they're certainly worried, now that he's AWOL.


	6. Chapter 6

Ruusaan takes a few hours to learn that Obi-Wan knew just enough Mando’a to understand her cursing at the control board, and makes it her mission to make sure he learns more. This includes, he quickly finds out, cultural lessons. One of the first is that armor is more than just beskar’gam, and that he will get himself killed without it. The jacket is a constant companion, now. The trip was just over a day, and she told him that first night that he needs it if he doesn’t want to get cut up on the streets. It’s heavy, but the lining has beskar interwoven into it the fabric to prevent most cuts and scrapes.

_“It won’t save you from a blaster bolt or a lightsaber, but it’ll keep you from getting shivved in the streets.”_

Their first stop, Kuat, has yielded some results. The planet known for shipbuilding is also a hub for covering up illegal activity. Tracking sources means waiting, though, and waiting means establishing covers. In the days since landing, Ruusaan has made sure to contact a few of her people – her aliit, she calls them, telling him Eldar has aliit across the galaxy - in order to get some more ears in the area and for one or two to come as back up.

Kuat isn’t too cold, but he wears the jacket off-ship all the same. The few times he has taken it off, Ruusaan has given him a harsh look as a reminder. She nearly chided him in public once when he had thought to take it off around others.

He needs access to the Force, and the beskar in the jacket makes that hard. His meditations are shorter than they were before leaving for Alderaan given their time not spent establishing covers and searching for leads is short, but he doesn’t really mind. He finds his mind is clearing somewhat by having something to do and focus on in ways he sometimes struggles to clear it in meditation.

Ruusaan has insisted that he wear old clothes she has on her ship. Blastweave trousers and loose shirts give him a look like any other young man working long hours and making ends meet. Kuat is a planet full of young men living that exact life. For the first time in his entire life, Obi-Wan is almost normal.

Kuat is developed. That is the euphemistic term the Temple taught them for these kinds of industrial worlds where the wildlife, the nature, had been subjugated in favor of profit and manufacturing. The air is thick everywhere with the byproducts of the shipbuilding and metalworking that goes on on-world, and even painted buildings take a dark cast to their facades. The streets Obi-Wan walks in the day are full of worn down people going from work to home. 

There is an abandoned area in the warehouse district. He has to wear the jacket to and from, but Ruusaan has insisted they visit it for two hours a day. One is spent on general hand-to-hand and another on knife combat. It goes against everything the Order has taught him to learn more violent, more war-like, combat, but she glares down at his lightsaber and mutters about relying on more than one thing.

The only time he had broached the topic, brought up the Jedi teachings about the lightsaber and its role for a Jedi, she had summarily rejected the entire idea.

_That weapon is only your life if it’s the only weapon you can use well. Learn another karking skill and you won’t need that jetii’beskat for everything._

So he takes it in stride, assuming that even if he never uses a vibroblade again, the skill is still one more thing he will have in his back pocket. Just in case. Quite literally, given Ruusaan shows him areas in the jacket made for holding disguised and concealed weapons.

He tries to draw the line at learning blasters (and adding another hour to their early morning training, as well, that could have been for meditation or for basic chores) but Ruusaan is unimpressed.

“You’re a peacekeeper or whatever, but you even admit that you’ve had to fight before. As a child, no less.” She scowls at that, and Obi-Wan understands on some level why but on another refuses to think about it. He did what he had to do, and he would do it again. He did what was right. He won’t be repentant. “If you have to fight, you’re going to be able to do it with more than one karking weapon.”

And so he starts learning blasters. His immediate response is to call it barbaric – something that throws bolts into a body and kills from a distance feels _wrong_. It is impersonal in a way a blade could never be. If he is to take a life, he wishes to impart the dignity of meeting his opponent’s eyes.

But he will admit that it teaches him more than one thing about combat. And when they start switching up from handguns to rifles, he finds that the challenge of a distance shot – these trainings done in the afternoon in a small clearing never really crossed into – is thrilling.

The trek back to the ship tonight, in the middle of their third week on this planet, she looks over at him. She's quiet a moment while she takes a measure of him. t makes him “You’re not going to die on this mission.”

“Pardon?”

“I said you’re not dying. That’s a damn order.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

She hands him a voice-comm and shows him where to hide it in his jacket. It’s conveniently placed that he can hit it just-so to turn it on from the outside without anyone knowing or suspecting the pocket is there, much less the comm. He isn’t sure what to make of it, but he keeps the jacket on that night as they board the ship again. They landed a few klicks outside the main city to keep themselves hidden, and the walk is nice. When things cool down at night, Obi-Wan is genuinely glad for the extra layer, knowing his robes are not always the best for cutting wind. Some nights it is nice to have in the durasteel frame of the ship, which picks up the temperature drop, as well.

Still, he shrugs it off tonight for a respite. It has cooled down, but he is worn out and he wants the weight off his arms and chest.

He turns in not long after Ruusaan, who bids him a terse goodnight and makes for her own bedroll. There are quarters on the ship, but the two of them sleep in the main hold on bedrolls. The comfort of another human being is reassuring some nights when he wakes up haunted by Melida/Daan.

He has not spoken of it in the Temple. He answered the Council’s questions in the vaguest of terms because he was not ready for people to judge his decisions, his year there. He did not want to be talked at about what he did with people who had not been present for the decisions he had made. The first night he had shot up from nightmares, his brusque answers to questions prompted Ruusaan to let it go.

The second, she had made spiced cocoa, this time not meant to burn the mouth but rather spiced with something meant to make the cocoa warm the chest and settle in the body, and sat across from him.

_I’m not about to make you talk about it. But whatever it is, it won’t get better keeping it all in._

It had spilled, tumbled, raced out of his mouth. He told her everything and she listened without so much as a word. Not a frown, not disgust, not chastisement. She listened, she understood, and then she responded.

She had told him he had done the best he could. That he was fourteen, and sure there had been warriors in her own culture and others younger than that, but even so. He was fourteen, and he had been thrust from a peaceful life into a war and into command.

She had made him a second cup, told him to sit and stay down like he was a child and wasn’t twenty, fast approaching twenty-one. She had put it in his hands, put her own hand on the side of his face, and said the adults in his life had failed him.

_They failed their ad. It wasn’t the first time someone failed an ad, it won’t be the last._

She had ushered him off to bed, then. And other nights since, she had made a point of waking him before the nightmares did, of putting an extra blanket on him, or of keeping him distracted until he fell asleep near the console.

Tonight he hopes there is peace in his sleep. He is running on fumes and the Force, and he can certainly keep going if he must.

But a long sleep would help with this mission, would help with the confusion in his head and the lack of clarity he feels when he reaches out to the Force.

Restful sleep is not what greets him. As soon as his eyes are closed and his mind is opened in a way only sleep allows he feels heat and sees fire. He has had this vision since Alderaan, he knows it intimately and he knows the course it will chart.

But nearly twenty days without it, whatever the reason the Force has for leaving it to the side, throws him off. Everything is hotter, more vivid. Brighter.

The woman is fighting someone now, not just falling into the flames of the planet’s surface. She’s fighting but she isn’t winning.

She has a blue saber. Blue and bright and it burns Obi-Wan to look at it. It weighs his soul down to see it and to watch it not even help. Her opponent fights with a staff, speedily throwing a defense up only to switch it to offense. The woman is knocked to the side and throws the saber away. She falls and she burns and Obi-Wan feels it in his chest, feels _burning_ on his skin and feels something tear inside of him.

It’s faint, everything he physically feels. He learned the hard way this is the warning of pains he may feel. That he will likely feel, even, if he cannot interpret this dream out, tease out what the Force is asking of him and do something about it, he knows he will feel it for real and it will be oh so much worse.

The ash from the woman on fire hovers around Obi-Wan’s field of vision until it can start to take the form of a face that phases out into a line of nearly-overlapping faces as though someone is holding mirrors opposite one another, on either side of the person in front of him. Dark hair, dark eyes, and facial features the Force tells Obi-Wan he should _know_ look at him. They plead with him.

 _Gaa’tayl._ Over and over, that one word, spoken in the barest of whispers. 

He can’t help them, though, because the Force _screams_ as a white light surrounds them, and as long white hands grab them, pull them just out of reach while Obi-Wan is taken and forced down, down, down.

This is always the last of the vision. On Alderaan, the faces of the children were hard to see, obscured by shadows or by tricks of the light. Now they’re overcast by the edges of shadows, yes, but clear enough for his eyes to see their features. 

The oldest is a human girl, the middle a young Twi’lek boy. The boy clings to the girl, who is holding a squirming infant. There is fire in her eyes as much as there is fear in his.

“We’re here.”

He jolts awake hearing that voice echoing against his skull while the Force prods him and pokes at him, practically chastising him for cutting himself off so long. Had he cut himself off? It wasn’t intentional.

This isn’t like his nightmares of Melida/Daan, and Ruusaan seems to pick that much apart on her own. She throws him a canteen of water and tells him to hit the sonic. “You can meditate, or we can do training early. Either way, I doubt you’re getting back to sleep tonight.”

She isn’t wrong. And she’s almost tender as she works to calm Obi-Wan down and focus him on something else.

In the sonic, however, he can feel the vision still haunting him. Can feel the hands that pulled him away from the pleading line and can still feel the frozen determination in the oldest of the three children. He knows that look.

People get that look when they are determined to survive. He had it after Melida/Daan.

She is far too young to be meeting anyone’s eyes with that much ferocity. She is too young that she should have to. And Obi-Wan wishes the galaxy were kinder, that he had more leeway and room to _do something_.

But he answers the missions he is given. In this instance, the mission has given him the opening he needed.

There are rules, he knows. Rules he has tried so hard to follow because this was his last chance and that made so much _sense_ at 13. But now, at 20 he can only look at that and scoff. He has other options, he knows that now. It helps that he is of working age, now, but he knows that the rules…

They are so important in the Jedi Order. And so important when using the Force. But he chafes against them just as he has since Melida/Daan, when the rules did nothing but nearly kill him. Had killed people he cared about. He respected the rules, and he acknowledged them… but sometimes when he meditated he could feel the question in the back of his mind. Were the rules really serving the people they were meant to, or were they serving to shield the Jedi from uncomfortable questions?

He knows this is the kind of thing he should have sorted out a long time ago. Perhaps it says something about him as a Jedi, even as a person, that it is not so clear cut and simple to him.

Ruusaan follows him when he throws the coat on and makes to go outside. She keeps pace with him and throws an arm around his shoulders like he remembers the crechemasters doing when he woke up from visions as a child. It’s comforting in a way he hasn’t felt in a very long time, and Obi-Wan cherishes the moment of closeness.

They do train that morning, and then they hit the streets. He has a job and a fake identity – Ben Eldar, Ruusaan had insisted they keep the same surname. She has shortened her own first name to Ru and is acting the part of a bounty hunter looking for some peace for herself and her adult son.

He loads freighters and doesn’t ask questions where they are going. He checks everything he and his cohort load, scans the Force around things to feel for any life signatures. He has yet to run across any living cargo, which is the only boon to this whole thing. The delay is still frustrating.

It’s a routine, though, and Ruusaan thinks she may be onto something if he can bite his tongue and remain patient a few more days. People talk around the laborers, they don't see them as a threat. 

People talk, and Ben listens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoy! Your comments on chapters fuel me, oh my gosh. I try to respond to all of them within 24 hours, but sometimes it takes a bit because of work and classes but you have no idea how much it makes my day to see the comments you guys leave! Thank you so much! <3 Much love to all of you, and if authors could give kudos to readers, I would! 
> 
> Mandalorian:   
> beskar: Mandalorian iron   
> beskar-gam: Armor   
> ad: child   
> Gaa'tayl: Help


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given it's a holiday in my country (Happy Thanksgiving, American readers), I figured I would drop another chapter today! You'll still get the usual Friday update, and I still have plenty of chapters in reserve (the break I'm getting from classes gives me ample opportunity to write even more on this story; Currently on Chapter 18).

Amilr lands on Kuat earlier than expected, meaning she gets her mother to herself for a few hours while Kenobi is still out on his fake job. Buir speaks highly of him, and Amilr knows that tone as surely as she knows Kaval is as much of an ass as he is a fighter and that Skali has a body-count to rival everyone else in Clan Eldar.

Skali, though, will never get caught. No one expects someone who looks as young as she does to have killed _that_ many men, especially the ones with power. And if a few people a little too interested in children end up off the books? Well, no one in Clan Eldar is going to complain. Very few Mandalorians would complain, excepting the New Mandalorians, and even then, they’d only be concerned with the violence. And Kaval is a scrappy bastard when he wants to be, for all he has a hell of a mouth on him the second things aren’t serious. They're siblings she can be proud of, even if they're maddening on the best of days.

Having heard it before, then, Amilr can say she knows what’s about to happen based on how her buir talks about the boy. And she’s going to meet this new kid first, Kaval and Skali be damned.

There’s a set of Jedi robes sitting on a bedroll, and Barim’s old clothes are missing. They’d been kept on Ruusaan’s ship after he died, and if she found a Jedi then Amilr was glad they had been. Kid would be sticking out like a damn krayt dragon if he was walking around in this osik. She leans down to grab it, pulling at the fabric. It is some kind of linen-based fabric and thin. Not very good for protection, and not good against the elements. Even the wool cloak was only marginally better, given it would blow open when a breeze caught it.

“Put his things down, Amilr.”

“He goes into battle with this osik?”

Ruusaan takes the clothing from her and refolds it. “It’s what his Order demands.”

“But he’s fine running around in Barim’s stuff?”

“He doesn’t know it’s Barim’s.”

That is definitely _not_ what Amilr is getting at and Ruusaan knows it. “What are you expecting out of this kid?”

“For the time being? To help me bust this trafficking ring.”

Amilr scowls at that. All of them, with the exception of Skali, who had to be bullied into the Clan by Amilr and Kaval, were brought into the Clan after one of these kinds of missions.

“You’re not rushing into this?”

“I’m not planning anything.” Ruusaan meets her eyes. “But it’s been five years. If I _was_ planning anything then it would not be ‘too soon’.”

Barim died in a firefight and Ruusaan had gone on a hard retirement. She opened the food stall on Alderaan – “It’s one of those quiet places,” she had said, “the kind where you just know the people have got some fight in them.” – and then she had done her work as Eldar’Alor from there. Barim, her only child born to her and her long-dead riduur, had been special as much as she tried not to play favorites. He was Kastrin’s only child, was Ruusaan’s only hold to him. Mandalorians didn't value blood born children over adopted, and Ruusaan was Mando'ad to her core. But she missed her riduur, and Barim had looked so much like him. 

“You’re giving him Barim’s things – I don’t want you to regret this.”

“I let Barim go years ago, Amirl.” She runs a hand down Amirl’s cheek. “I appreciate your concern, though. Now, come on. We have some dinner to cook if you’re going to be staying.”

Obi-Wan shows up half-way through the cooking and he does what he’s told and seems to observe everything they do to catalog all of that information and keep track of it. When they eat, he takes the food as it’s given, which pulls him up a little bit in Amilr’s respect. At least he isn’t chicken or a complainer. When Ruusaan wasn't looking, she had absolutely upped the spice in order to see what this dikut was made of. 

If she hadn’t seen the Jedi clothes, she wouldn’t have thought him anything close. He’s relaxed here, even with her around, and he laughs and smiles with her buir freely during dinner. It is not until they reach the time for strategy that she sees any hint of the undoubtedly costly – both monetarily and in personal experience - training he had been given over the years. They’re still eating, but the get-to-know-you’s have passed and they have no excuses anymore. Ruusaan has made a trip to the ‘fresher, but no doubt will not miss much if she already knows what Kenobi knows.

“I believe there are at least three children from this ring still on Kuat.”

“You do?” Amilr has discarded her helmet but left her armor on. The kid isn’t even carrying his damn laser sword, though Amilr is pretty sure she sees the outline of a vibroblade in his boot. At least Ruusaan has put that much on him. “And what makes you think that?”

“I don’t know how much you know of the Force, but it can send visions.”

“Yeah, my vod’ika gets them sometimes. Not super sensitive or anything, not like the Jedi, but he can fuck around with it.”

Kaval loved making an ass out of himself with it, if she is being entirely honest. He would have been so bad at the Jedi serenity vibe, and that was about the only redeeming thing about her vod’ika being able to use the Force. She can make fun of him for it. Maybe now, if Ruusaan is serious and decides to take this ad in, they’ll find themselves with someone to keep Kaval in his place.

“I was having them on Alderaan, before they stopped coming. At least, they stopped in any sort of noticeable intensity.”

She gestures for him to get on with it and she can see the mischief in him as he _refrains_ from flicking a piece of the rice on their plates at her. He would do it, but he’s a Jedi and he’s not _supposed_ to. Challenge accepted, gihaal. She is going to get him to loosen up.

“At first it was very vague, on Alderaan, I mean.” He rushes through his sentences like she’s about to challenge him on it. She doesn’t have the Force, but someone who does had done it enough he second-guesses himself and ah kriff. She gets it now. He’s like a kicked Tooka cat, but way more lethal. No wonder Ruusaan called her. “But it’s clearer, and the oldest of the children is saying _‘we’re here’_.”

“Children plural? Like, ad’e?” Ruusaan glances towards him. Maybe this was new to him, or maybe he hadn’t told Ruusaan yet. Amilr isn’t sure which, but her gut tells her it has nothing to do with trust and everything to do with timing.

“Yes, ad’e.” His accent on the word is almost good. Ruusaan nods when Amilr glances over, wondering if he knows more of the language. “I think we might find three of them here, if not more.”

Amilr moves the conversation along. “So we want to knock out a trafficking ring, but while we’re at it we might be able to pick up three ad’e from a rough spot.”

“What do we do after, though?”

It’s a stupid karking question, but given he’s jetii, Amilr can’t really fault him. It isn’t as obvious to an aruetii, after all. “Clan Eldar will take them. We have some people who are looking for kids of their own, and some of them are the more stationary sort. Give the three of them a good home, or homes if we think they might want to be separated or be better off an only child for a while.”

Obi-Wan considers it and nods at her, and she wonders if he has doubts. Mandalorians have a shoddy reputation at best, but it’s the worst with the Jedi. “I think that would be better than any alternative I would come up with.”

“Alternatives like?” Amilr challenges, taking a chance that he might settle into himself if she prods at his ideas.

“The Republic fostering system is not very good.” Understatement of the century, if not the millenia. Go on. “And I worry that, at least for the youngest, returning them to their home would end up putting them in the same situation again.”

He cares. Jetii aren’t… they’re supposed to care, yes. Every Mando’ad, for as much as they may have an engrained frustration-cum-anger towards the Jedi for a long history of war and bloodshed, they know they care about others in their own, distant sort of way. But they cloister in their Temple, they come and go from conflicts that are politically convenient but often others get left behind. She can think of four planets she’s been to, alone, that had requested and been denied Jedi assistance. She knows part of it is the process – they have to go through the Senate, in some sectors, in others the forms are so long and convoluted it can take weeks to process, in general the bureaucracy of it all is as terribly uncoordinated as it is unnecessary – but another part of it is just that they are distanced.

They train themselves to be distanced the same way a bounty hunter does. But where a bounty hunter has to make the kill, and therefore has to see the consequences, so often the Jedi can leave and the problem only gets worse. And they don’t always care in the aftermath.

Obi-Wan, he cares. He’s a credit to the organization that he cares so much about something so small as the fates of three children when compared to everything else he's getting involved in here.

She’s met good Jedi before. In bars after hard missions, where the barriers were just a little lower, she’s met men, women, and everything in between that would sit down and tell her that sometimes, it felt like they could do more. And she’s seen the look in their eyes when they said it, like they felt like the butt of a cosmic joke.

And Obi-Wan is getting close to that. And he’s younger than she is.

“Good thing Clan Eldar loves its foundlings. I think the last time someone was actually born into this karking clan was at least a decade ago.”

Ruusaan could have picked a lot worse.

That doesn’t mean he is any good at defending himself. She takes him out for some light training and while his calisthenics and his endurance are fantastic, the boy’s best ability that isn't his lightsaber is his hand-to-hand, which is only okay. It’s meant to be supplemental, and she wonders if he was ever taught to properly fight if he was unarmed.

His basics are good. If that was the groundwork for most Jedi, then it is some solid footing for her and Ruusaan to build on. And maybe, who knew, this one in particular just needed more practice. No one was perfect, and all that.

She catches it, finally, that last piece of the puzzle for him in particular. He gets caught up in his head and she can see how quickly it could end badly for him. So, she calls off the spar and starts talking to him about paying less attention to his strategy and more attention to his surroundings, about turning his brain off and listening to his senses, and then she sucker-punches him.

Best way to learn, and she will stand by that. It was how she got Kaval out of his head, and how Skali did it whenever she was asked to teach ad’e. It was a staple in Clan Eldar, and it came with a strict training-grounds-only policy.

His arm comes up to block it – good, the Force is helping him anticipate even when he’s not aware of it – and then his hand goes out in a flat strike against her chin.

Karking hurts, but damn she’s proud of him for it.

“Good. A couple more times getting the drop on you and we should be making some headway.”

Strategy is all well and good, but muscle memory and follow through are better. She’s not losing another vod to careless and dumb behavior.

“You’re not going to let up on it, are you?”

Amilr smiles at him and reaches out a hand, surprised when he grabs her wrist in an almost correct version of the traditional Mandalorian greeting. “No way in haran, kid.”

She’s glad she got to meet this one before the others did. She’s the calmer, saner sibling, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we meet the first of Ruusaan's "contacts". (Family. They're absolutely her family.)   
> I try to leave the Mando'a in plain type, particularly with Mandalorian characters. How do you guys feel about this choice, would you prefer them italicized? 
> 
> Mando'a:   
> Buir: parent   
> osik: shit  
> Mando'ad: Mandalorian lit. Child of Mando/Mandalore   
> dikut: idiot. Can you tell she's already two steps from adopting him as her sibling?   
> gihaal: a pungent dried fish meal. Author derived as a kind of insult.   
> Jetii: Jedi   
> Aruetii: Outsider, foreigner, (potentially) enemy  
> haran: hell


	8. Chapter 8

Obi-Wan is glad for the jacket for all new reasons when he gets jumped on his way back to the ship. Amilr sees the tear in the leather and sets about showing him how to get the patches to line up just enough so that it looks intentional, like the many other patches on the exterior.

The vibroblade had not made it through the lining. He should thank the Force for that, even if, as he suspects, it had been what dulled his senses enough to make him miss the warnings.

“You need to be aware of your surroundings, Obi-Wan.” Amilr puts a hand on the back of his neck when they’re done. Holds his neck, and therefore his head, in place to look at her. “You cannot get caught out like this again. Just because the Force can tell you these things doesn’t mean _you_ can rely only on it.”

She’s not wrong, and he starts making a point of observing more. The Jedi, certainly, are taught to observe. But they are never taught to seek out a threat if the Force hasn’t warned them. It is antithetical to being peacekeepers. They are to assume the best intentions. To see the Light.

But so many times Obi-Wan sees people not bringing their best, and he knows that it is a minority of the people in this galaxy. It is, however, the majority of the people his missions throw into his path. And Amilr is right – he needs to be more careful. He cannot assume that he will be safe because of the Force when the armor he wears mutes it just so.

He has stopped wearing it to sleep. It led to more sleepless nights until Ruusaan told Amilr, leading Amilr to bully him into keeping it on every other night. She cares, as does Ruusaan, and Obi-Wan isn’t quite sure why. The training steps up, but he doesn’t find himself resenting it quite so much as before.

Amilr is a far more exacting teacher, but she also explains the gaps in his defenses differently than Ruusaan, and her explanations make more sense to Obi-Wan. She shows him the different grips for a vibroblade and shows him how to work the blade into and out of a fight, as well as how to keep it on him, no matter what. How to hide it in his coat, and how to hold himself so there’s less of a chance of it being noticed if he gets frisked.

Amilr is as touchy as Ruusaan. Ruusaan’s touches tend to be shorter, but both of the are prone to touching his shoulder or bumping their forearms against his. Twice now, Amilr has pulled him by the back of the head to touch foreheads after rough training sessions. He did not realize, until now, how much he had missed that.

His friends in the creche and he had been affectionate, but had drifted apart in the years following. Quinlan was the only one who maintained his physically affectionate side into adulthood, and even that was a coping mechanism. If he could feel that his friends were safe, in every sense of the word, he worried less.

He keeps asking around, trying to lay low as he does it. There is no new information, but he has gotten side-eyes and mutters from people. They might open up soon, just to get him to shut up.

If he’s honest, Amilr’s training the only thing that saves his life the day he isn’t jumped, but accosted.

Poverty on Kuat is fairly rampant. For all the Republic commissions a large number of its ships through the area, the builders get paid a paltry sum in comparison. To save enough to get off-world is seen as the dream for most young people and Obi-Wan can’t fault them that. As such, there are people willing to do some heinous things for a few extra credits. Even if they aren’t willing to commit the action themselves, most people here want to avoid trouble and are inclined to look the other way, particularly for a stranger.

Kuat also happens to have the highest per capita individuals outside of Mandalore and the Outer Rim who turn to smuggling or bounty hunting. The picking for someone who can abduct a man in broad daylight without much interference or comment is not slim in the slightest.

With the jacket on, the Force’s warning comes a half-step too late and he wonders if this is what the world is like for people who aren’t Force-sensitive. Things happening to you with no semblance of sense to it.

The man who approaches him from his forward position gets his attention, says his daughter went missing. Obi-Wan pulls his hands out of his jacket pockets in order to help him. He moves a hand towards Obi-Wan’s back like he is going to show him where he last saw her, but then his hand is on Obi-Wan’s skull. His head is pushed down into the man’s knee, and he is disoriented for a moment. 

He's pulled back again by his hair.

His hands flail a bit as he hits the comm to get a hold of Ruusaan and Amilr, let them hear whatever goes on, but it is the only thing he manages before there is a fist in his face - a second assailant. His nose is bleeding and the sudden change is disorienting as much as he tries to release the sudden spike of adrenaline and focus on the moment. Instead, all he can do is put his hands in front of his face to block the next strike of the knee before the second assailant's hands (is it the second? Is there a third, he can't tell before they're moving him again) are on his shoulders pulling him back and yanking his arms back.

“Keep asking dumb questions, boy? Thought you would have stopped after your first little run-in.” The man has Obi-Wan’s arms pinned behind him. Obi-Wan struggles to get even the one free, to throw his elbow in his would-be captor’s face. The man curses and brings his arm around Obi-Wan’s neck.

It’s a precarious position, and if he moves his hand to Obi-Wan’s head he could just as easily snap the neck and be done with it.

Obi-Wan is only twenty. This is far from the first time he has faced the possibility of death.

And yet, for all that Melida/Daan had carried the possibility every day, for all that Naboo had meant quickly coming to terms with the fact one stray lightsaber strike could spell his end, it feels so visceral and real right now, in this moment, in an entirely new way. He had been numb on Melida/Daan, seeing it every day. He had been detached on Naboo, fearing he might lose his Master. But now all he feels is his racing heart, pounding breath and the dread that sinks so low in his stomach to mix with the helplessness he's feeling through this whole ordeal and he wonders if death is like that, if he will meet a new form of dread every time they two cross paths.

He is only twenty, he doesn’t want to die. He just attained his dream, he’s a Jedi Knight. He wants to see Anakin grow up to become a Knight himself, wants to take his own padawan one day. Say good-bye to Ruusaan and Amilr because for as short a time as he's known them, they feel like _so much_ in his mind and heart. 

He doesn’t want to die, and knowing he will return to the Force doesn’t do anything to _stop_ that.

The man rams something harder than a fist, something duraplast at least, if not durasteel, into his skull and Obi-Wan is unconscious. It doesn’t feel like time passes between the second his awareness blips out and the time he wakes up, in a small duracrete cell. Still disoriented, and with a splitting headache. When he tries to stand, he is dizzy and holding thoughts together in coherent streams is difficult to say the least. One thing he can keep in his head, though, is the comm. The chances of the signal getting out are slim, but they left him his jacket. It is about the only thing keeping him from freezing in the cell, and he finds the hidden comm and hits it until he hears the slight beep. It had gotten lost in the fight, that sound, so no one had gone looking for it. The hits must have turned it off at some point. 

If nothing gets through, he can hope there is a record function. If he dies alone, he wants… he doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t know what he would say, what testament to his last he could give.

He stops thinking about it. The Temple taught him negotiation, Master Jinn taught him to talk his way out of situations and to use his head. Melida/Daan gave him hands on survival lessons.

Amilr taught him to combine those things, and so he does.

First step – what does he have. A single comm. It’s been transmitting for less than a minute, and he opts to let it go a minute more.

“I was jumped again – I think someone is on to us.” He mutters, hoping the comm is reaching the ship, that he isn’t so well hidden away or underground that the signal is being jammed. “I, oh,” he sways a bit. He might be concussed, but he doesn’t have time to deal with that. Did he already consider that possibility? He isn't sure... There’s pressure at his neck and he thinks it’s his collar right until he touches metal. “I haven’t dealt with this in a few years.”

A slave collar. He’s got a slave collar. The only thing that can possibly do is put one small piece of his mind at half-rest. Some of the children, the ones Artem had lost track of… they might still be alive. The ones on the Outer Rim… Slavery was no life to wish on someone, but it meant that someone could do something, could find them and get them out.

But… They had to gamble for Anakin’s life. They hadn’t saved his mother from that life. She was left behind. 

There are slaves suffering everyday in the Outer Rim. No one does anything; the Jedi are ordered not to, instead trying to help the Senate keep the peace on more advantageous planets. The issue of slavery is remanded to an ever later date because no one knows what to do without collapsing entire economies, even though it is wrong, wrong, _wrong._

Obi-Wan hits the wall and the pain in his hand almost makes it worth it. He hadn't put much in the way of real force into it, but it does something for him. He's lost thoughts again - where was he? 

Back on track. He hits the comm again, hoping it turned off and will save the battery for later. He takes his jacket off – his jacket? He knows he has to give it back after everything, but it feels so comfortable on him and he will be sad to leave it behind – and starts poking through it.

He doesn’t have his knife. Evidently, they had found that.

But now he can feel the Force running through him and it feels so good – he hasn’t felt this properly in days. Not awake, at least. 

He listens to what he assumes is the hall, tries to hear if there is even a semblance of activity outside his cell. While it is silent, he holds his breath another beat. He wants to be sure… if he goes into a deep meditation, even on accident, he does not want to get caught out by the people who are holding him. As it is, the collar on his neck is a heavy reminder of the potential harm awaiting him.

He had never wanted to relive Bandomeer, he had been ecstatic when they managed to get even _one_ slave free from Tatooine. For all it led to his Master setting him aside, he would do it again.

By the Force, he hopes Anakin has a more stable master than Qui-Gon.

He shouldn’t think that, he knows it. Qui-Gon has an incredible record for a Jedi; that does not mean that Obi-Wan can just _forget_. It's harder now, with someone like Ruusaan telling him that he should be, is allowed to be, upset with the decisions Qui-Gon had made. 

He sighs and listens again. It's the past and he needs to let go. Listen, instead, to the now. No steps, no sound.

He should take a proper posture, should sit upright, but instinct tells him to look as casual as possible. Not to give any indication he is doing more than sleeping or resting. The only thing to start his meditation, then, is to start evening out his breath. He starts with a basic focus: in, out. In, out.

It takes a few minutes to get the hang of it – he hasn’t been practicing as much as he ought. Just as he gets it, he loses that focus.

He tries again. This time, he counts the ingress and egress of each breath. He times it and links his focus onto that evenly-spaced pattern of inhales and exhales.

The Force starts to pull itself around him. He missed the feeling. It cloys with his hair a bit, like a long-missed friend commenting on him needing a haircut. He’ll get to it, after this mission.

_No, you won’t._

The Force is not a direct speaker, usually, but sometimes Obi-Wan can pull a quip or two.

He sees the mirrored face, a boy with dark hair and eyes, but now the cuts are different, or the postures. There are more of them, now, but there are gaps in the long line.

_They won’t all make it out alive, Obi-Wan._

_See to it the ones who do have a home._

He does not know what to make of that. He tries to pull out more only to feel something _jar him out_ and sithspit, the pain. It burns at his neck but he feels the pain of each of his muscles spasming.

“Get the bastard up.”

It’s the collar. It’s shocking him and there are hands under either arm pulling him up and shoving him forward.

“Until the boss figures out what to do with you, you’re on manual.”

Obi-Wan does his best to get the jacket back – he isn’t _leaving_ it. The two beings, one male human and the other, well he is fairly sure that they’re Dathomiri but he cannot be certain when his focus is completely on making sure that he doesn’t leave the jacket behind. He refuses to die of cold on a planet this far from home.

Manual, evidently, means manual labor. Obi-Wan is fit, but this kind of work is meant to be grueling, back-breaking, and spirit-crushing. The legal oversight stays conveniently placed on the ramps and catwalks above the actual working area; they do not see the sheer number of slave collars being used. They’re thinner than the last one Obi-Wan wore and he can almost guess it’s so they’re less likely to catch notice. 

This is good. If he's keeping track of his thoughts longer, the concussion might be starting to abate. Maybe it hadn't been as severe as he had thought.

Kuat is a major Republic shipbuilding outpost. How many ships did the Jedi Order employ that had slaves’ blood on them and in them?

Obi-Wan, upon cutting his hand, smears some of the blood on the back of some interior plating. Maybe, just maybe, someone will see it and investigate. Wonder.

He can’t stop it. He didn’t even _know_ about it until now.

The end of the day leads to him being rounded up with the others and dragged back to the main hold. The overseers call them cargo, and sneer at them. Obi-Wan scowls right back, for all it gets him hit and the occasional shock.

He will not _break_.

His resolve hardens when they make it back to the hold and he sees them. All three of the children.

The girl is standing, defiant, against the man who smacks her. She is blocking the Twi’lek boy and the infant from him, and Obi-Wan wastes no time putting himself between her and the man. He is an adult, he can take far more abuse than a child.

“Get out of the way, boy.”

“Get your rocks off hitting kids, do you?”

That leads to a punch to the solar plexus, winding Obi-Wan long enough to take an elbow to the temple and then to have his collar activated. Again.

He is going to have tremors and shakes for weeks after the mission, at this rate. This much electrocution cannot be good for the nervous system.

It is worth it, though, when the girl manages to take the boy and infant and hide them amidst the crowd of older slaves, almost all of whom take it upon themselves to act as blocks to the overseer’s sight while he takes his anger out on Obi-Wan.

It is worth it to know they’re safer than they were two minutes ago, for all that Obi-Wan has trouble standing when the man grows bored of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I gave you guys hope and then did this but... I promise it has a good end? 
> 
> To make up for dropping the Angst on you, here's the recipe for the cocoa/hot chocolate that Ruusaan gave Obi-Wan earlier in the story. I would have posted it then, but I wanted to remake it to make sure I had the right recipe in mind.
> 
> Ingredients:   
> your preferred hot chocolate/hot cocoa (I used hot chocolate)   
> milk (I have dairy issues but still make it with milk; I'll be making it with almond milk and reporting back on how it turns out for those of you who Also have dairy issues)   
> ground cardamom   
> ground cinnamon
> 
> Make the hot cocoa in the microwave and put somewhere around half a teaspoon of the cardamom and cinnamon in on top of the cocoa powder before stirring everything together. Taste test and add more of either/both to preference.


	9. Chapter 9

Anakin is deceptively calm when he tracks Mace down. He has Quinlan and Qui-Gon with him, and the prognosis is grim if Vos is tolerating Jinn. He never forgave the man for putting his best friend through the hoops and jumps it took to be taken on as his Padawan, and his resolve against him only hardened after Jinn left Kenobi on Melida/Daan.

Kenobi was a promising young man even back then – Mace is glad to know he is formally within their ranks, that sending him to the AgriCorps failed and led to bringing him back for all neither Jinn nor Kenobi mentioned much about the circumstances.

(Mace thought he had seen the faint burns, which eventually seemed to fade with time, under Kenobi’s robe collar, electrical burns. Vokara had confirmed it, but said he refused to talk about how he had gotten them. Instead, they all watched as he got better at covering them with a strategic placement of his tunics until one day the scars were nearly impossible to see if you didn’t already know they were there. He continued wearing the turtlenecks, though, to cover them.)

Jinn had always been good at his work as a Jedi; the man understood diplomacy and politics with the kind of single-mindedness and bullheaded simplicity of someone who didn’t really have to _think_ about it, rather just had to assess the situation.

That never stopped Vos from dragging Kenobi away from his Master whenever they were in the Temple long enough to meet up. Qui-Gon’s reputation as a Jedi didn’t matter to Vos, he just wanted to make sure his friend was cared for.

Quinlan stands between Anakin and Qui-Gon, much as he would stand between Obi-Wan and Jinn any time the two got into trouble as teenagers, and Mace braces himself for some new stress that will likely come with its own new brand of migraine.

“Obi-Wan is in trouble.”

“What makes you think that?”

Truth be told, the Council had lost track of Kenobi over two weeks ago. His last communication had been from outside of Alderaan, no location provided and the call purposefully obscured, with the assurance he had back-up and a plan. Evidently, per usual, that went off the rails very quickly. Of course, the Council were worried. The man was twenty and had just had his career fast-tracked because he killed a Sith. There were worries he got in over his head after the emotional high of Naboo.

Mace thinks differently – he thinks Kenobi’s self-sacrifice streak got him on the wrong side of the wrong person. Plo has returned to ALderaan and is already looking into anymore information that can be found, but while the Queen and Consort were willing to entertain the Jedi there were people on Alderaan pushing to see them leave. They did not want them poking around in their business any longer, even in search of one of their own. His co-workers throughout his mission there said he was quiet, did his job, and kept his head down. Fairly standard, but the exact opposite of who Kenobi is. The locals say he left when he was supposed to, why should they know anything about him going missing? 

Anakin still hasn’t answered, so Mace tries again.

“What makes you think that, Padawan Skywalker?”

Anakin glances at Quinlan, who nods while Jinn raises a brow.

“Master Windu, I think the boy is just over-excited.” Jinn was never quite the same after the shitstorm that was Xanatos and the fall-out with Feemor. The man used to like and value the word of younglings, Initiates, and Padawans. Mace doesn’t know what, specifically, the events changed but whatever it was made him… He was not quite severe enough to be called unkind, but he was far colder to them.

Quinlan scowls. “Let him speak, Jinn.”

“I sensed him. For a little bit, anyway, but then it got really weird. It was like when Kitster would get punished by his master and his whole Force thing would start shaking when the shock collar went off.”

Mace sighs. He has yet to address that – they need to find a different word for Anakin to use. It cannot be good for his recovery to be addressing everyone as ‘Master’. “You think someone hurt him?”

“Uh-huh.” Anakin folds into Vos a bit, and while it is concerning Mace also let part of himself relax, knowing that the Council had made the right assignment for him. He is already trusting Vos, a very good sign. “But then it got all quiet and hard to find again.”

“What did?”

“His Force signature?”

He knows the vocabulary is new to Skywalker, that’s why he bites his tongue and lets the questioning tone slide.

Jinn doesn’t. “Are you asking or telling?”

“Can it, Jinn.” Quinlan glares at the man. He’s speaking barely below a shout. “I know you think we should all live in the now, but if Kenobi is _living in the now_ and that ‘now’ includes being electrocuted, we got bigger problems on our hands than your personal philosophy.”

Anakin flinches at the mention of electrocution. Mace needs to keep this under control if only for Skywalker's sake.

“Knight Vos, calm down.” Mace turns to Qui-Gon. “Knight Jinn, while your insight is appreciated by those of us on the Council, in this matter we must ask you to restrain yourself. It is understandable that Padawan Skywalker may have some difficulties adjusting to everything.”

“This isn’t about that!” Anakin pipes up again. “This is about Obi-Wan!”

Mace nods. “Yes, it is. But please, in the future, Anakin, allow me to finish.

“The Council has been investigating Obi-Wan’s disappearance. As far as we know, he went AWOL on a lead, but he has since fallen out of communication.”

“It is not unheard of for Obi-Wan to act on his own instincts.” Qui-Gon’s façade of pretending he has complete faith in Obi-Wan, that everything is fine, doesn’t fool anyone in the room but Anakin. He’s worried, even if he refuses to say or acknowledge it.

He isn’t wrong, either. “Nevertheless, Knight Jinn, we are still investigating his disappearance.”

“He felt further away this time, further than when he was on Alderaan.”

Skywalker is getting better, but he is so open to the Force. He could hurt himself, with his new awareness, if he keeps extending it out. He broadcasts everything, as well, making him an easy target.

“Knight Vos, I will ask you to meditate with your padawan.”

Quinlan nods. “Come on, Ani. Let’s teach you how to shut the Force up a bit. If you're up for it, we'll even start on some better shielding.”

“But what about Obi-Wan?”

Mace kneels down and sits at Anakin’s level. “Anakin, we are doing what we can to find him, and we will continue doing everything in our power. But we also want to protect you, and part of that is helping you learn to control yourself

“I have to ask you to do your best to trust us and let us do our jobs. We are trying to protect you from any psychic backlash from over-extending yourself.”

“What if he’s really hurt?”

Mace does not like making promises to people, but he has a soft spot for younglings. He knows that he should be more careful. “I promise you, when we find Kenobi, you will be the first to know. We’ll make sure you see him when he’s back.”

Skywalker fidgets in his spot against Quinlan, but ultimately nods and follows him. “Okay. And if he’s hurt?”

“Then you can keep him company in the Halls of Healing.”

He should not be encouraging the attachment, but at the same time they took this boy from his mother at nine. He already _was_ attached to people and he had left it all for the Order. If, for the first little bit, he clung to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, then Mace was more than comfortable allow a little flexibility in the Code. The mind healers took privacy very seriously, but he would recommend they work with him on balancing his attachments with his logic; and, like with every child under the Order’s care, some of it would just have to come with time.

Qui-Gon stays behind. “You should not promise things you may not be able to deliver on.”

“Your padawan is missing, Jinn.”

“He was rather keen on reminding me he was not my padawan anymore.”

Mace sighs and starts some caf. He has a feeling he will not be sleeping tonight.

“Qui-Gon, sit down.”

“Mace…”

“Qui-Gon, your padawan is a competent young man. You should be proud.” Mace pours two cups of caf and puts them both on the table. He stares at Qui-Gon, knowing full well that he can and will do this all night if he has to.

Depa was a wonderful padawan, is a brilliant Knight. Mace would trust few people more than he trusts Depa.

But when she was a teenager, there had been some legendary standoffs in their shared apartment. She can be stubborn as Mace when she wants to be and has never been afraid to tell him when she thinks he is being ridiculous or short-sighted. Her Knighting was only recently, though, and Mace is nowhere near out of practice. 

Qui-Gon Jinn is child’s play, comparatively. It takes less than two minutes for him to decide to join Mace at the table, even if he holds the caf without taking a single sip.

Depa once held out for two hours, standing with her arms crossed and glaring him down to match his own unimpressed stare. He later found out she had been stealthily meditating the entire time and was more than a little proud she managed to hold it for so long without him catching on.

“He is, certainly, competent.”

“So, do you want to tell me why you kept him at arm’s reach for seven years, despite knowing the Order has guidelines against that specific thing because of how delicate sentients tend to be at that age?”

“He’s so…”

“Driven?”

“Arrogant.”

There it is.

“He isn’t Xanatos. And, if I recall, you were supposed to go to therapy after the Melida/Daan disaster because you were seeing Xanatos in everything he did.” Mace sips his own caf. Let Qui-Gon’s get cold; Mace can reheat it later when 02:00 hits and he is so tired he doesn’t _care_ about the taste of the caf, he just cares about the jolt of energy it brings.

“I may have missed some appointments.” It is a testament to how badly Jinn’s kriffed this all up that he will even admit that. He is admitting to Mace, in at least some sense, that he _knows_ he should have done the therapy, talked it out and worked through the problems.

Because Xanatos is not, in most senses of the word, Qui-Gon’s fault. Xanatos made the decisions he made, and when he Fell it was a result of those choices. Whatever part he might have accused Qui-Gon of having in that, he had not pushed Xanatos off the cliff. Xanatos jumped off on his own. 

Mace bites back the groan of dealing with one of _far too many_ stubborn Jedi with a dissatisfied glare, instead. “You kept a young man who was desperate for your approval at a distance because you refused to deal with your own issues.”

“He should not have attached himself to me, or to the idea of my approval, so much as he did.”

“He was thirteen, Qui-Gon. Thirteen, traumatized, and had finally gotten his last shot at following the one dream that had been dangled in front of him for his entire life. He didn’t have a home culture to look back at, he had the Jedi. That was it.”

Mace is younger than Qui-Gon, that goes without saying. But he has been groomed from the time he finished teaching Depa to take over the running of the Order, and that meant at least a passing familiarity with the Jedi Knights in the Order and a more-than-passing familiarity with Padawans who had a tendency to get hurt or over-involved.

And Kenobi… Mace remembers a time when most thought _he_ would fail out because he was too aggressive, too sure of himself, too much. And people said the same of Kenobi; had he not been teaching Depa at the time, he would have claimed the kid as his Padawan, Yoda’s visions of the Jinn-Kenobi team be damned, if only to prove he wasn’t a one-off. 

People had been as skeptical of Mace until he had created Vaapad, until he had found the balance of the thrill of the fight and the serenity of the Force to maintain a feedback loop.

People would look skeptically on Kenobi until he proved himself in a way that others saw as valuable. Successful role in leading a war effort at the tender age of thirteen (into his fourteenth year) did not count for most.

Qui-Gon has held his tongue for several minutes. “I know I did not do well by him. I do not know how I could have changed things.”

“You do know, but you are not and were not willing to consider it an option.” Mace drains the rest of his caf and pours more into his mug. A productivity-inducer is a fine vice, if he can say as much. “And that is why I put forth the motion barring you from taking another Padawan.”

“You suggested it?” Jinn looks as close to angry as the man gets with most people. Kenobi is far better at getting under his skin, and Mace has a feeling they should have kept a closer eye on the two.

“You took a thirteen-year-old raised in the Order, for all the trauma he suffered, and now we have a missing Knight within a month of him leaving your care. Then there’s the shoutout in the Halls of Healing before they got you in the healing trance. Not to mention all the times things ‘happened’ to Obi-Wan that I’m not entirely sure couldn’t have been avoided.”

“I am not responsible for Kenobi going missing.”

“No, but you were responsible for his well-being. After Melida/Daan, he suddenly had all the excuses in the galaxy for missing his own therapy. His self-sacrificing, instead of being moderated and dealt with, only got worse over the years.” Mace holds Qui-Gon’s gaze, practically dares him to look away as he continues. “We might have avoided this, if the person responsible for teaching Kenobi worked with him to recognize when throwing himself into the thick of things might do more harm than good.”

Qui-Gon does look away. He stares into his caf, and he doesn’t look back up. “I hoped, if he kept his focus on others, he wouldn’t Fall.”

“He isn’t Xanatos.”

“I know that.”

“But you don’t believe it.” Mace sighs. “You have a lot to answer for. You’re not going on missions for a while, anyway, so I expect you to attend at least a month of therapy sessions. We can revisit in the future, but at least give it an honest shot, Qui-Gon.”

“Why bother, if I’m being barred from taking a padawan again?”

Mace knows he is asking just to be stubborn, that Qui-Gon knows as well as Mace does why he should bother with therapy. He’s going to say it, anyway, if only to try and get through to Jinn. “Because you might have a shot to fix things with your last padawan, and maybe even with Feemor.”

Feemor, who had watched the argument between Jinn and Kenobi in the Halls of Healing and taken it upon himself to disrupt the situation. Mace is fairly sure Vokara is ready to induct the boy into the Halls as security based on that alone, and even if she doesn’t she has been singing his praises since that day as “a man of sense”, an accolade she gives to a very small number of people.

“And I don’t think, if you decide to try, that it will go well if you refuse to do any work on yourself.”

Mace dismissed Jinn and waited for him to be gone before groaning.

He had an errant knight to find, and hopefully they would find him alive so he could make good on his promise to Skywalker. The kid didn’t need to have one of the few people he recognized as safe and familiar ripped from him so soon after joining the Order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... At this point I almost need to tag Mace Windu & Cosmic Headaches under the relationships section of the tags.


	10. Chapter 10

The first night Obi-Wan doesn't come back, Ruusaan worries and takes that worry out in training and watching Amilr’s well-honed skills work out small, minute technical issues. The dinner they have becomes less a family affair and more of a battle dinner. Basic food, cooked fast, and the two of them are tense throughout the whole meal.

She starts looking for him, looking deeper for the connection between Kuat and the human trafficking ring that they’re missing while staying as quiet and under-the-radar as possible.

Her dreams these nights wake her earlier and earlier. 

She takes a long drag of her caff this morning, days after his disappearance, and tries to banish the images her mind supplies of a short-haired, thirteen-year-old boy dying under blaster fire, under bullets, under missiles. Of a young man, barely out of his teen-youth, dying under someone’s fist or someone’s blade.

Or to someone’s equipment. Or throwing himself in front of the assault for someone else. Because as short of a time as she’s known him she knows enough to make that guess about Obi-Wan Kenobi. He would volunteer himself to march ahead if it meant those he loved stayed here. 

Ever since Galidraan, her mind has never needed help conjuring horrors to haunt her sleep. Obi-Wan Kenobi has just provided it some new material to torment her with. Obi-Wan Kenobi, the strong young man that walked into her restaurant and was amicable even knowing he stood out and likely wasn’t welcome. She had thought he was taunting her or the other Mando’ade, at first. There had been other Jedi that did just that.

No, the kid just wanted to burn his mouth off. Wanted a quick lunch and to get right back to work because he has a sense of responsibility, of buir'kan about him. When he came back, that was when she decided she could at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

_So many were younger than I was._

He was a child-soldier, and that grates her. Thirteen was barely an adult to traditional Mandalorians. Old enough to begin more earnest, dangerous training. Battle too young, and they all knew the risks. Thirteen…

Her working theory is that is when his responsibility streak really started. To be so self-sacrificing at this point in his life must have started earlier. Maybe the Jedi teach to be willing to place oneself between innocents and the danger, she wouldn't know, but she knows one thing. That kind of self-assumed responsibility beyond even the mission parameters comes from one thing and one thing only: horrific, brutal, bloodying experience.

Ever since Galidraan, she has been the same. It was what made the others declare her their Alor after the Civil War, when Kryze banished all traditionalists, banished the Haat'ade, alongside the Kyr’tsad, branded them _all_ traitors to the will of Manda. Like she knew a damn thing about Manda. 

She shoves her hand through her hair, combing it back, somewhat, with her fingers in order to separate it out and braid it down her shoulder. It will shove into her buyce more easily if she has it already braided, and then she can focus on putting blaster bolts between the eyes of the people who started this whole ring in the first place.

She has family still on Mandalore, not that they talk to her. No, the Eldar’alor be Manda’yaim has declared for Kryze – in the standard oaths with all their pledges of blades and blasters in times of strife, certainly, but still. For pacifism – and has declared all the Eldar outside the sector to be traitors to what Mandalore as a society is owed.

He had deserted the field during Galidraan, and Ruusaan is not the only one who never forgave him for it. How could she, when she watched a different Jetii cut down the last Aliit’alor?

She is looking for a jetii, but he’s practically an ad, all on his own. Certainly, when she considers how short his ad’ca’nara was cut she wonders if he was ever allowed to be an ad at all. What little she knows about the Jedi Order was supplemented by Obi-Wan without him realizing it – relation of this story or that anecdote filling out a previously sparse picture. She knows they take children in young, take them in as opposed to take them. That mattered to Obi-Wan and she understood the distinction a little better now.

That matters to Obi-Wan. She understands the distinction. She cannot think in the past like that. She will not lose herself in this mission.

“Ad’ika…” She is staring down the map she has been making of the area. The public access areas are very strictly controlled, and in a Republic manufacturing world that is always a huge red-flag. The people there are the same people every day, on the same routes home because they know which roads and alleys are safe and which aren't.

Of course, Obi-Wan had taken all the safe roads, guessed them based on foot traffic over the first few days, and here she is trying to find him.

Not trying. She _will_ find him.

 _You’re not dying… that’s an order._ And if an order is what it took for him to keep going, then an order would do. The second he got on ship, though, it was to a medical check and then to food. Whoever had him, standard procedure for capture was to keep energy consumption lower than expenditure, if possible. It was a tactic for prisoners of war, and it is a tactic that could be used too easily here.

She has little doubt about what has happened to him.

Amilr shifts and sighs. “You’re no good to us if you don’t sleep.”

“I’m no good to you? I’ll remember that next time you call.” She’s joking, and Amilr knows it, but now is not a joking time.

It doesn’t break any tension, and it just gets Amilr to push herself up and wander over. Kuat doesn’t publish maps if they can get away with it, and the one Ruusaan has is far too incomplete to be good for much at all.

“I can call in some favors.”

“I’m calling your brother.”

Amilr considers that. She and Kaval drive each other to crawling on ship walls on the best of days, but they’re both hard-workers and serious about the jobs they take. Even more, their serious about aliit.

Amilr flits through the map. “I might be able to do some recon myself.”

She’s good at getting where she isn’t supposed to be and always has been. When Ruusaan found her half-starved on the streets of a Hutt-controlled city at twelve (and using that ability of hers to keep herself out from under the Hutts control by running merchandise, money, and blackmail for anyone working against them), it meant she had a nightmare for a daughter to try and raise. Now that she knows when and how to use it for maximum effect, it makes Amilr a terrifying opponent and an amazing ally.

“Be careful. I’m not losing both of you.”

“You’re not losing him if I have anything to say about it. But kark, don’t put off the adoption vow just because he’s jetii. He’s a runner if I’ve ever seen one, doesn’t want to bother anybody.”

Ruusaan knows it’s true. She sighs. “Well, I can't exactly lift operations straight to Coruscant. Too costly and too crowded. Half of the clan won't even go, and they need to be able to stop and see me periodically for sensitive jobs and the like. Even if we go through with the adoption vow, we have to find a way to keep an eye on him.”

Amilr groans. “I hate Coruscant.”

“I didn’t say you.”

“Because a reckless jetii and Kaval are such a smart mix?” 

The little bit of levity from that idea is enough to break the spiral of dread that has been pulling at Ruusaan since she woke up. They don't have to mention Skali, they both know that wherever Kaval and Amilr end up she eventually follows, she just takes her time. They're some of the few Clan Eldar members that would risk being so close to the Galactic Senate after Galidraan, and they're also careful. So very careful, even when they seem to be acting out of reckless instinct. She is so proud of these three, of her children. 

Obi-Wan... Her thoughts circle back to him. The young man she has come to know over the course of a month and she knows that there is little room for arguing with Amilr on this. The vow won't wait, not if she has anything to say about this. He will not be forgotten by Clan Eldar.

And it comes back, that haunting image from her nightmares. Thirteen and a child soldier. Left behind, at that. She has some words for his master, if she ever meets him, but she knows that anything past words won’t be appreciated. Not by Obi-Wan.

She’ll leave any acts of violence to her children. They’re far more creative than her in the retribution department, anyway, having all the years of practice against one another.

Another ache. Her siblings all died at Galidraan. She lost the chance to have the rivalries and the feuds and fights and love that otherwise she would have known. She had been the youngest of them, kept behind just in case something went horribly wrong - her buir had a feeling. 

“So you’re calling Kaval, and he’ll probably drag his crew in on everything.” Amilr keeps clicking through the map like she’s going to materialize the information they’re lacking, and it draws Ruusaan's attention back to the moment and the task at hand. “I’m doing recon as soon as I leave. That leaves you sitting and worrying. I don’t like that.

“Buir, you have to find something to do.”

She considers what she knows and opens a new file on the hold’s display. She makes quick work of typing everything out just as her own buir had taught her.

 _Who does she know?_ She knows three shipbuilders, some merchants, some compliance inspectors, and someone with rather a lot of money and no discernible source.

 _What does she know?_ She knows the shipbuilders get shifty about labor, the merchants get shifty about product, and the compliance inspectors look twice before answering a question. She also knows at least two of them take bribes. As for the wealthy individual, they're mentioned, never seen. She hasn't got a name, but she knows this kind of investigative work isn't her strong suit. Kaval knows some people, good slicers and charming sweet-talkers that will be able to drag this information out and make something of it in ways she knows she can trust. Whatever she cannot do here, they have the people who _can_ do something and will. 

_Where can she start?_

The hardest question of the three. If she takes out any suspects for the kingpin too soon, she risks killing an innocent man (or, as innocent as he can be with such shady finances). If she goes after him too late, he might have beefed up security. 

The head compliance officer, though… She’s low on the food chain, if Ruusaan has learned anything about the structure of these organizations from her own handful of experiences infiltrating them and from Kaval’s long-winded rants about underground slave trading. He would be the one to ask, given how many he has worked to take down, but he isn’t here. Not yet, anyway. Going after an official has it's own risks... The Republic getting involved might increase the risk against Obi-Wan, and it might get her and Amilr arrested, not to say anything of when Kaval's network arrives to start taking down the operation at large. 

Still, it is a starting point.

“I’m going to start tracking down more of this network.” She looks at what she’s typed. She has to be confident in her decision, even if there is that feeling in her gut that something is _off._

“That’s…” Amilr rolls her eyes. “Not what I meant.”

She flips through Ruusaan’s notes.

“Don’t go after the official – too many eyes. Start with a shipbuilder.” Amilr is right, but it feels so small. Ruusaan knows better than to rush like this, knows better than to let her reactions cloud her ability to respond effectively to her environment.

“I’ve been in this business a lot longer than you have.” Still, to do something. To feel like there is something being done. She doesn't know, exactly, where the distinction is right now. That scares her - she has made a habit of _knowing those things_ because as the Alor of Clan Eldar she has to make the hard decisions without letting her first reaction do more harm than good. She has to respond, and she can't force herself to bite down on the urge to react. 

“And you taught me everything I know.” Amilr nods at the amendments she has made to Ruusaan’s document. “Let me get you some more information before you start screwing over and shooting the compliance officers, at least.”

Ruusaan wants to fight something. More than that, though, she wants to take this ring _down_ and she wants to do it thoroughly. Trading in children was enough to warrant her ire, but now they’ve hurt her people. For what she wants, she needs information and by Manda she is so glad her children are the people they are because while she is pulling herself away from the brink of her anger, Amilr is keeping her head just as she had been taught.

Amilr pushes her a bit harder on coming up with a plan, but Ruusaan waves her off and starts herself on shipbuilders. Amilr is right, the compliance officers is risky and will call too much attention to Kuat with not enough time for her to ensure the safety of Obi-Wan and the children he claims are here.

The second they smell a mole or a threat, whoever has him will be better off killing him and she knows it.

Ruusaan starts with the two that she has seen cozying up to government officials – not just compliance officers, but some of the Kuati government, as well. She watches them for four days to get a feel for which one is likely the brains, shooting out his accomplice the morning before she acts.

He freezes and looks around, but Ruusaan is too good a sniper to get _caught_ , especially in an area with so many potential nests as Kuat.

She watches him walk the rest of the way to work. Watches him work. Watches him leave.

He looks over his shoulder the entire walk towards his home, giving her ample opportunity to drop in front of him and point her blaster directly into his chest. Her buyce and armor covering her face and figure, she is protected from surveillance, certainly. She doesn't know what Kryze might sign over, but the Haat'ade would not sell out the clan colors of one another. 

“I want information. And it’s in your best interests to give it to me or tell me who can.”

Peace is all well and good, but the fear in his eyes is the only thing motivating him to tell her what he knows about the slave trade here and who is involved. He’s a buyer, he says, that’s all he does. His buddy is in with the smugglers, goes on and off world every four cycles and should be coming back soon. He even gives her a name.

He swears by it. Ruusaan still throws a fist in his face.

“Anything else?”

He makes himself look pathetic like it is in any way convincing. When he makes a move for her blaster she lets it go without a fight, already pulling a back-up out and shooting his shoulder, then his knee. He's going to resent her the rest of his life now he has to find new work on a planet so centered on manual labor, but seh doesn't care. 

“I’ve gotten rid of a good portion of your income just now. I’d put down the weapon before I take your head, too.”

He scowls and keeps it up. She dodges his attempt to shoot, his finger fumbling for the trigger (an old Clan trick, move the trigger up just a bit from the normal position. Make it just that much different that they take that much longer to shoot, if they get your weapon. She'll need to teach it to Obi-Wan, teach him how to make the modification unless Amilr or Kaval beat her to it.) and giving her time to throw a roundhouse kick into his face, take the blaster back, and put a blaster bolt through his head.

Amilr makes a low whistle when Ruusaan gives her the name later that night. The man has a long record in their circles, a long sheet of things he is known for and has claimed credit for. “Looks like we’ve got one of the runners. He might know who the on-world contacts are.”

Ruusaan nods. “Send this to Kaval. He’ll want it for his people.”

Kaval has already sent several messages to lay the logistics. The initial operation will be focused on getting Kenobi and any kids out. Anyone older is a bonus, but his contacts in abolition networks are adamant that they need to be allowed to run through and do their thing to prevent any slaves from dying in the immediate aftermath. They’re the ones with the experience and technology in this field, and after some pushback, Ruusaan has agreed.

Kaval is a serious young man, when he’s on a job. She knows that. Even if she doesn’t trust the people he runs with – more out of habit, than anything else, of not trusting much of anyone outside of aliit – she knows he would not purposefully endanger others.

That will have to be enough. She wants war, she wants to shoot the people responsible.

She can help him manage the aftermath, though, find starting points for these slaves, and that has to be enough for her. She, like any leader, has to pick her battles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone wants to know, I'm going to start including some timeline notes after the Mando'a so that everyone can be on the same page regarding when things happen. 
> 
> Mando'a: 
> 
> buir'kan: responsibility   
> Kyr’tsad: Death Watch  
> Haat’ade: short for Haat Mando’ade or True Mandalorians   
> buyce: helmet  
> Eldar’alor bah Manda’yaim: Leader of Clan Eldar on Mandalore (author derived using the Dative form preposition ‘bah’; lit. Leader of Eldar to Mandalore. Logic behind this is that the Mandalorians have Mandalore, yes, but they are also known for being nomadic. Hence, in the consciousness of the banished members of the Eldar clan, the ones who swore to Satine swore to the planet Mandalore, not to _the_ Mand'alor (leader), or to Manda'yaim, the concept of home.)   
> Ad: child  
> Ad’ca’nara: childhood (author derived; lit. “child time”)  
> Ad'ika: lit. little one, often used for one's children at any age  
> Mando’ad draar digu: A Mandalorian never forgets  
> Munit tome’tayl, skotah iisa: long memory, short fuse  
> Haat’Eldar: True Eldar (author derived; This is how Clan Eldar outside of Mandalore the planet identify themselves in relation to those they consider their traitor family, which they call Dar’Eldar)  
> Dar’manda: No longer Mandalorian. To have lost one’s soul. 
> 
> Timeline Notes: Obi-Wan has been captive about a week at the start of the chapter (Ruusaan is trying to get information on him, but given how careful they have to be now because of hostages it's slow going) and nearly two weeks by the end given that four day gap she's been trailing. The encounter from last chapter takes place towards the end of Chapter 8, but he had been on Kuat nearly a month at that point since he was with Ruusaan and trying to dig up the information on the network. As such, he's been away from the Temple a total of nearly two months (two weeks on Alderaan, a month on Kuat, and then two weeks in captivity). 
> 
> At the start of Wednesday's chapter it will have been about two and a half weeks.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Later posting than normal - I spent my entire day writing papers and taking finals and finally caught a bit of a break for the evening, so I'm posting with final edits.

Obi-Wan’s second day of slavery comes with a renewed determination to keep the children in the warehouse/sleeping shelter of harm’s way. As far as he can tell, they’re too young for the shipyard, so they’re kept inside. Each day meets that same wake up, though, and soon he feels the days, however many they may be now that they start to bleed together, draining him. The labor, the lack of food, the shock punishment and the beatings when he tries to protect others.

For all that, though, he _is_ learning. Gathering intelligence, rather, though he does not know if he will ever be able to put it to use.

The structure of the system seems to be those under legal Republic working age are kept out of sight – the Republic law enforcement can only overlook so much – but the older they are the harder they’re worked. Once people get too old, they got sold off into the Outer Rim. The first chance he gets, he activates the comm. He is relieved it turns on – that he hadn’t kept it on accidentally and drained the power supply, and that it hadn’t gotten short-circuited in the electrocutions from the day before.

Chances had been slim, but they’d been there.

He relays what he’s learned to the other side of the comm, hoping Ruusaan was still even on-world. Without the Jedi she was helping, who was to say she would have stayed? She had no reason to, barely had a reason to come with him.

Jedi weren’t supposed to work with bounty hunters. He doesn’t particularly care, if it means getting some of these slaves out.

He dodges the sight of the overseers as much as he can in order to explore the section of the shipyard he is being kept in. At this rate, he might get killed for disobedience before anyone finds him, but any information he can relay is more information than they had to start. He'd like to hope the transmissions are getting through, and more than that if he sees a chance he's going to _take_ _it,_ but for that to work, he has to know his surroundings well enough to get others out, too. 

At some point, he gets too far from the remote and he feels a tooth chip in the effort to bite back a scream from the pain. He manages to work his way back in range, barely breathing. He wonders at the pain in his mouth - not just from the chipped tooth, he soon realizes. There is blood - he bit down on his cheek and far harder than he had thought. 

He doesn’t know what’s worse – the ramped up pain of an electric shock that is meant to kill him slowly for his disobedience, that will ultimately make him work slower and worse giving his overseers more reason to continue shocking him, or the threat of explosion should he get even further away.

At least one of them is quick.

He throws that thought in a mental bin to deal with later, when he has another opportunity to meditate. For now, he works his way back towards the main shipyard.

There is a tall Zabrak man prowling around the shipyard and scowling at the overseers. He wears beat up clothing and looks as much a part of the Kuati population as anyone else. Obi-Wan knows better than to dismiss an unfamiliar face, but it is tempting given how well he blends in. 

He walks right by Obi-Wan, but the man brushes against him with the Force. Even muted as he is, he can feel it just so and he nods to him. As the man stops, pretends to look around for something before cursing and turning around, Obi-Wan is treated to a full shoulder collision and the placement of something oblong and thin in his right hand.

He stashes it in the pocket; he remembers enough from Bandomeer to know contraband is best kept secret until he is out of sight of any overseers. He makes quick work of zipping the pocket and does not look back at the Zabrak man.

He has to hope the man is helping him, hope the man knows he is grateful.

He has hours left on the clock. He will be working until the Kuat sun goes down, and likely after given an overseer sees him and throws him into the shipyard lower dock deck. The pitying looks from the other slaves grate more than they should. The men down here are all thinner than any of the other slaves he has seen, and their bodies are corded in disproportionate muscle. Yes, they are strong. No, they will not live very long.

He does not know if this is a temporary punishment, a warning of where he will end up if he keeps pushing buttons, or if they intend to keep him here until he, too, dies.

They could kill him tonight. Once again, Obi-Wan is struck by the urge to not _die_.

He works and sweats. At one point, he feels a piece of metal strike his chin, but he keeps working, working, working. He does not focus too much on the work, knowing if he does the time will go slower. He tries to drown out the pain and the world around him, now that he is somewhere tightly controlled and inescapable,, in the monotony of the work he is doing, ignoring the blood dripping from his chin for what must be hours. Overseers prowl down here all too happy to find the slightest incursion upon which to twist their remotes, cause them pain. 

Eventually, the bell sounds and he is taken back. 

He takes another beating for the children. They scatter again, but that night the girl comes up with pieces of ripped fabric. There is a Togruta woman behind her, being led by the hand.

His hand hurts. He thinks a finger might be broken, and he knows that there is some serious damage to his wrist; the overseer took a foot to his hand once he was down, repeatedly. She wraps the bloody part with one strip before trying to immobilize some of his fingers.

“You’re doing an admirable thing, but if you keep getting yourself beaten at night, and then working through the day you won’t be alive long, and then they’re back where they started.”

The woman presses her lips thin, she touches his shoulder and helps him up to sitting.

“I can’t watch children get hurt.”

“There are smarter ways to do this.”

“I’ve never been accused of being particularly bright.” Obi-Wan tries his best to smile, but the pain and the exhaustion barely lift his lips to a grimace.

She introduces herself as Lar’tin, and she sits with him while the others start slowly nodding off.

“You should sleep off your injury.”

Obi-Wan wants her to nod off first, so he can pull whatever it is that man handed him out of his pocket. He says nothing, and instead he nudges her with his shoulder. “And you?”

She puts a hand around his shoulder. “You’re new. And strong. But that strength won’t last if you don’t take every opportunity to help yourself.”

She gets up and goes back towards the children. The little girl comes towards him before picking up his hand. “Why would they hurt your hand if you have to work the docks?”

“I suspect because they weren’t thinking about that – they were just thinking about what was easiest to land a foot on.”

She scowls. “That’s dumb.”

She’s right. It is, indeed, dumb.

“What’s your name?”

“You first.” She raises a brow, and she has so much personality and fire to her she reminds him of Anakin. He makes a quick introduction before learning her name is Tal. The Twi’lek boy is Castin, and the infant doesn’t have a name yet.

“I want to name him Ben, though.” She is drawing with her finger in the dirt. More people are asleep now, but she continues talking quietly next to Obi-Wan. “But we don’t name kids until they’ve been around a year or two.”

Obi-Wan nods, and his hand finds its way into his pocket, fiddling with the contraband he was given.

It’s not a key to the collars – that would be a pipe dream. He can’t quite tell _what_ it is, but he decides to keep it anyway. There is a clip on the side that he uses to place it on the collar of his shirt, near the one on his neck and there's an odd _clicking_ sound for a moment. He had not felt the magnets upon investigating, but it clips shut and he hears a slight beeping sound as it starts up and he wonders if he has just made a mistake. Either way, it’s a safer place to keep it, for now, than his pocket.

Tal distracts him again, this time with stories about her homeworld, and about parents pressured to sell her to a shipbuilding company because one of the Kuati cartels was choking their homeworld. The Republic, she says, must be a myth because slaves don’t exist there. She talks like Anakin does – of a mythic world where things are perfect. Obi-Wan doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the Republic that is far from perfect; he does not have the heart to tell her that no matter what they do, the people who work and live off of slavery will find ways to maintain it, only this time they will coat it in a patina of legality and veneer of legitimacy that will make it even harder to dismantle. There are so many things he doesn't tell her because it makes little difference, in the long run, to her. Hope will get her through tomorrow, through however many days they will continue to live out their days in slavery, and he refuses to take that hope from her.

For as young as she is, though, he suspects she knows, at least in part, those sad truths. And he suspects Anakin, all the way back on Coruscant, does, too.

Instead, he asks one more question.

“Do you want to talk about something else?”

She looks at him, wondering. “Like what?”

He smiles, this time it almost works. “I’m not from Kuat. I have some stories I could tell.”

She looks like a child for the first time the entire time Obi-Wan has been here. She goes to grab Castin who is holding the baby. They sit and listen while he paints a picture of Coruscant with its high buildings and Naboo with its beautiful lakes.

He does not tell stories of missions and pain, instead he talks about a runaway Queen with her cadre of identical handmaidens who outsmart evil men twisting the laws against her and hurting her people. He tells a story about a brave knight fighting his former apprentice, who had turned to darkness. Making the stories fanciful, he can pretend they didn't happen to him, but to someone else.

Castin falls asleep first, then Tal. Lar’tin, laying nearby, turns over. “You have a knack for that.”

“Storytelling?”

“Well, that too.” She smiles. “I meant distracting the children. Gods of the field know they need it.”

Gods of the field, the little gods, the Force – to him they are all the same but he understands what she means. These two will never be proper children. They will carry however long they’ve been here with them the rest of their lives.

But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be led away from the horrors for a while, allowed to escape into a land of fancy and dreams.

And, maybe, Obi-Wan understands better what Lar’tin means when she says he could do better than taking beatings for the children and distracting guards. If they’ll listen to him, he can give them that brief escape.

As he lays down himself, part of him wonders if Ruusaan stayed. If Amilr is still on planet, if either of them are looking for him. He wonders what will be done if he dies here – will they pawn his lightsaber? Will Qui-Gon feel his death in the Force? Will anyone mourn the troublemaker?

Will Anakin be alright?

He wonders all of this and instead of meditating on it, releasing it into the Force, he finds himself writing in the dirt accumulated on the warehouse floor. Bits of metal shavings never swept up cut into his finger, leave blood in the dust as much as his finger leaves trails.

_Obi-Wan Kenobi_

_Age 20_

_Jedi_

_If I die here, I’m sorry. No one will read this or get the chance, but I promise you, I am._

_Quinlan, I’m sorry I left.  
_

_Anakin, I’m sorry I didn’t stay, that I didn’t push the Council to let me be your master. I hope they find someone good for you._

_Master Windu, sorry for dumping Anakin on you._

_Bant, I’m sorry I never took your advice, and that I was such a nightmare patient. I should have been better._

_Garensf_

He scowls at the mistake. He could feel tremors starting in his arm, as well, and he didn’t dare think about how bad it might get. They had happened, occasionally, on the lower dock but he had found ways around it. Now, he has nothing but time to focus on it. 

He rereads everything. There is a bit of light reflecting from Kuat’s moon that catches on parts of the blood, reflects a bit. His finger aches in the dull way that only fatigue can bring. It will hurt more in the morning, but the labor will distract him.

That was… Those are the amends he would want to make, if he got the chance.

He doesn’t know when he got so dour and morose. He doesn’t know why, after everything he has lived through, he keeps being haunted by this specter of death. This is, in many ways, just one more thing to happen to him. Melida/Daan had plenty of moments that had been far worse.

But this feels oddly like the _end_ of something.

Whether he lives or dies, nothing is going to be the same in the after. He is not sure he is ready for that. Part of him that is too quiet for him to really think on its suggestion wonders if this is what Mace means when he talks about a shatterpoint. 

As the tremor calms a bit, he looks back down at his list of amends. He wonders if he is ever going to make them in person. He drags his hand through the dirt, destroying the writing before turning on his back and falling asleep. The pain sparking up along his hand is too easily ignored. He…

He feels his hopelessness become something else. It’s not very Jedi-like, hopelessness or this fire in his chest. No, but it is motivating, and he grabs the pain and the indignation and he lets himself feel it. He can’t really focus on meditation right now, anyway, and whatever is available to him for survival he will use to whatever ability he has.

He drifts off to sleep, finally, with Ruusaan’s order repeating in his mind.

_You’re not dying._

No. He refuses. On principle. Let these people try and kill him – he’ll keep getting up until the moment they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Mando'a this chapter and some... set up. If you care to guess, I won't make any promises on revealing spoilers but I will tell you that we are finally moving into some of the spaces I had Planned for this story.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again - posting delayed because of finals. Last one is on Monday, though, so I should be able to post in the mornings again come next week.

Kaval trained as a sniper. That was his background and sure he can fight decent up close and personal, but it really isn’t his style. Instead, he likes the distance kill and the subterfuge. Helps that, given how little training he actually has in the Force beyond "here's how to make things get away from you", the distance gives him the time he needs to get the damned thing to respond to him. Regardless, that’s why he starts keeping his eyes on Kenobi from a distance. For several days he trails the kid and tries to find a convenient moment.

When Kenobi wanders too far and the setting ramps up automatically, Kaval watches from afar. He doesn't necessarily like having to let the kid suffer from that collar, but he can’t risk pulling him aside to get osik done when that could make things worse for him. Instead, he waits for the opportune moment to run into Kenobi and drops the shock pull, and makes some distance. He can’t barge into the slave quarters and take them all out, it's too dangerous at this stage of the mission.

Kaval has some contacts, and he knows that once Clan Eldar has finished their personal business they’ll want to come through and take care of their own objectives. He knows their routines and timelines, and he can make some guesses.

First will be the slicers and the machinists. The slicers will get the doors open, the machinists will rework the collars until they have time for a more permanent solution.

Slicers are good at what they do. The kinds of criminal slicers Kaval runs with tend to be better out of necessity; can't get caught if you're better than the people with the good training and the good equipment. But any advantage they get on the out is one more thing in their pocket so laying some markers, planting pressure-based key-logging in the undersides of screens, these are among a few things he manages to do.

The machinists they bring tend to be some of the best people and minds Kaval has ever met. The rule about slicers – that the criminals tend to be better – goes ten-fold for machinists. They think faster than anyone else he's ever met, and they usually can reverse engineer some complicated osik under pressure.

It will only get them in the door, but the other half of the operation knows what they’re prepping for. He still wants to see if he can’t track down a key – most Masters closer to the Core were worse about treatment but poorer at maintaining their operation. Kuat had harder work, known for driving the slaves to the bone. Not dealing with slave revolts meant they didn’t have as firm of methods for discipline as places like Tatooine or Klantooine where the legacy of slave revolts meant the punishments were far harsher than electric shock. Added to that, the legal system would only tolerate and bend so much before the practice was too obvious and they would be forced to act against Kuati operation. As such, keys were usually one to a set of slaves, like several other Core-to-Mid Rim worlds. Innovation was limited when the room for it was stifled.

Kuat fit the pattern. 

Buir is a good judge of character, so Kaval doesn’t think about it too much when she calls Kenobi a good person with a self-sacrificing streak.

Just means Kaval gets to have some fun and do some breaking and entering. If Kenobi can piss off an overseer and trigger the shock pull, that makes it that much easier to get him out. He'll probably resist less if he thinks he won't get shocked for running.

He scowls at the Kuati moon.

He has hours to go.

He heads back to Buir’s ship. She’s got some hot food still in the prep area and Amilr is dozing over a datapad.

“I thought this was important to you guys.”

“It is. I’ve been up three days, di’kut.” Amilr throws a hand out to catch his knee and trip him. “You just got here.”

“I had to fly.”

“Oh, you leave your karking droid to do it, don’t lie!” Amilr has dark circles under her very human eyes. Orange Zabrak skin had its advantages – his sisters never knew when he was pushing it too far.

“Either way, kid’s gonna be spending another night in, if not a couple. He’s reckless, but he’s getting smart.” He takes a second to appreciate the warmth that pulses through his body as he eats the food. He was taken in by Ruusaan and the Eldar clan more broadly when he was nine. Before then, spicy food was the bane of his existence.

Now it felt like home. A pause to traveling and fighting and a moment to appreciate that he was here, in the moment, alive with people he loved.

Gods below, he is such a sentimental bastard when he wants to be.

He slumps down against the durasteel of the ship’s hull and looks at Ruusaan. She’s more tired than any of them, he’d bet, and part of him wonders why she hasn’t called Skali. For all she looks like a child, they all know she is anything but and would take to this mission with ease.

Skali isn’t talking to him after their last shared mission, but even she knows better than to dodge a call from the Eldar’alor, whether she likes it or not. As their buir – his, Skali’s, and Amilr’s – Ruusaan tries to be understanding. As their Alor, she has too much osik from family drama and politics of bailing out members of their family who were dumb enough to get caught to deal with on the regular to let their squabbles get in the way of things, including but not limited to her newest adoptee.

“The kid, he know any Mando’a?”

She had adopted Kaval at nine. She adopted Skali thinking she was about fourteen, and she adopted Amilr around thirteen. Skali may technically be the oldest, clocking in around two hundred thanks to her species’ slow-aging, but Kaval has always stepped up when Buir needed.

Skali has a different job. After Galidraan, Clan Eldar was split. There was one faction that opted to use the violence and the anger to right wrongs across the galaxy and those that just fell into old habits. Personally, Kaval thought little of the ones who didn’t take active stances, but he was not Alor and knew he would not make a good Alor, so he opted to ignore it when presented with it. Ruusaan was the one that had to do the family politics to make sure they stayed as Clan Eldar and didn't go completely rogue or worse, join Death Watch. 

Skali, with her deceptive youth, found her calling in hunting down every child predator she could find where Amilr went more freelance and he himself had negotiated his way into abolitionist circles.

Roaming the galaxy breaking out slaves and helping rebellions is a legacy he is more than happy to leave. Whether his name is sung from the heights of planets or whispered in seedy bars after his death doesn’t really matter. He can and will die with a clean conscience and the blood of more than one Hutt and slaver on his hands.

All this to say, sure it sounds like the kid has Mando’karla in spades, and he’s got the help-the-little-guy attitude that will help him mesh with Clan Eldar, but the Resol’Nare makes very specific demands.

“He does.” Buir pokes at her own, likely now cold, food. “He speaks it well, too. A bit academic, but he's a fast learner. He'll get past that in his own time.”

“You think the Clan will like him?”

“I think as long as you three have his back, he’ll get there.” Ruusaan is a hard woman. She survived Galidraan and rebuilt her clan from that catastrophe into something she could be proud of. Had she wanted to, Amilr has sworn she could have challenged Fett for the Mand’alor title and at least come close to winning when she was younger and before she started slowing down, but she took the Resol’Nare seriously. Her children and her family – ade be aliit – they took precedence.

Kaval is incredibly proud to be of Clan Eldar.

He finishes his dinner in silence and, as he falls asleep, wonders if this new kid will find himself equally proud. If he’s a Jedi, will he actually be able to live among them and die with a clean conscience when the time comes, or will he balk? Ruusaan may think he’s got it in him, but Kaval…

He’ll give him his fair chance. He can promise that. He just isn't so sure about it all. 

He rolls over to see Amilr sitting up. Ruusaan had called lights out for all of them. They needed to be sharp in the next few days when they tried to break out Kenobi and the kids.

That’s never stopped Amilr from losing sleep before major operations before. It’s why she could never join up with groups; she needed time she could detach and take a low-stakes bodyguard job without thinking she was letting someone down.

“I’m thinking once we get this di’kut off-world, you and I find a place on Coruscant.”

“What about your contacts?”

“They’ve been looking for an in to break up some Core-World slave trade for a while. If I’ve got a reason to move inward, they’ll just start using me as an in to kark osik up.”

“Delightful.” Amilr scoots closer, dips her voice lower to keep from disturbing Buir. She even pulls her bedroll over and lays down so she’s facing Kaval. It’s like they’re kids again and talking through the night thinking they’re being oh-so-clever and that Buir isn’t able to hear them just because she’s not saying anything. “I like that idea. I think he could use someone to look out for him.”

“And we have some other aliit on Coruscant.” He can feel his eyes drooping. “Get him in with the Core-sector side at least.”

“You think he’ll stay in his Order?”

“I think he might. But even so, don’t they have those padawan things? His padawans will be his ad’e.”

They don’t know a lot, they’re the first to admit it. But this idyllic image, this dream world they’re building…

It’s a ritual for just the two of them. Skali spent a century and a half flitting between groups of people and finding friends and allies and enemies – she doesn’t need rituals with people so much younger than her because she has her own.

So, they have this. They build up a dream and they play it out together and it gets them through the mission when things go sideways.

“You think he’ll take more than one? Can they even do that?”

They don’t know enough about the jetii to even begin answering that question.

“If he doesn’t, we’ll just adopt kids for him.” Kaval yawns and rolls so his arm isn’t holding all his weight on steel. “He’ll come to us and we’ll have a whole generation of family for him to spend time with and teach.”

Amilr nods at that and shifts herself around for comfort. “He’s a good kid.”

“Yeah. And if this is how he spends his free time imagine all the osik he and I will get up to.”

It’s a dream world. It’s a nightmare, thinking of someone like Kenobi working with Kaval. Kenobi was supposed to be doing research and ended up in the hands of a criminal slave trading ring. He was good at digging where he shouldn't be, sure, but he was also clearly a magnet for trouble and attention.

“We’ll get him back.”

“What condition will he be in when we do?”

“Good enough.”

Because all of them had been good enough when Ruusaan found them, and then they became family and they got _better_.

“Coruscant… Do you think he’ll even want to…?”

He’s a Jedi. _Jetii._ He, in any other clan, would have been left behind. He’s part of an Order of murderers but Kaval… He can admit that his hands aren’t any cleaner. A foundling is a foundling.

Ruusaan sits up. “I think that kid is so lonely that try as he might to push us away, he’ll still find his way back around to whoever is closest.

“Now shut up and go to sleep. We have a mission in the morning.”

“Yes, Buir.”

Mutual eye-rolls are met with a fond scoff from the other side of the room. “Stubborn ad’e.”

“You raised us.” Kaval is grinning even as he starts to fall asleep. He grunts at Amilr, who shoots a hand out to smack him, lightly, while she situates herself again.

He looks forward to meeting this kid properly. Doesn’t know that they’ll get along, but… He still looks forward to it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:  
> Mando'a: Mandalorian language  
> Mando'karla: the right stuff  
> Resol'Nare: The Six Actions, the code/poem from which traditionalist Mandalorians derive their sense of purpose, ethics, life.  
>  _(Note, the later line "Ade be Aliit" is taken directly from the Wookipedia transcription of the Resol'Nare and means children and family)_  
>  Buir: parent  
> Di'kut: idiot, fool  
> Osik: shit  
> Aliit: Family/Clan  
> ad/e: child/ren  
> jetti: Jedi 
> 
> Timeline Notes:  
> We've backtracked to last chapter a bit, but for context it has now been about two and a half months for Obi-Wan since he's been at the Temple. He's been in captivity about a month or so, I want to say, but I don't have my notes document out right now because I'm editing this chapter and posting as part of a short study break. 
> 
> Worldbuilding Notes: 
> 
> So I've had a couple people bring up being balanced about portrayals and I've had some great conversations about it in the comments - seriously, you know who you are and thank you to each and every one of you. As we get to the end of this chapter and before the next one I want to stress a few things. One, no narrator in the chapter is entirely reliable. Certainly, they're not so unreliable as to make what you're seeing on page false, but everything is written through a "character filter" if you will, based on their condition and experiences and emotions at the time. In English class terms, this is somewhere between Third Limited POV and Third Deep POV. 
> 
> Clan Eldar is my attempt at a "best case scenario" of the post-Galidraan traditionalist Mandalorian clan. They, like many Mandalorians, are not great people. They're entrenched in a warrior past, they absolutely have done things that are morally and ethically questionable if not outright reprehensible, and they are, at their core, bounty hunters like many of our canon traditionalist Mandalorians. That they try to aim this action in positive directions, like with Kaval running with abolitionists and hunting slavers, does not change the fact that their methods are flawed and, in many cases, risk doing more harm than good (i.e. what happens when Kaval kills a powerful slaver and leaves a power vacuum in their place?). I purposely picked them because we have very little in-world building (at least before _The Mandalorian_ but I have yet to watch it, so I won't speak to if they've built on them at all) on them and it was basically a blank slate to do this thought exercise on. 
> 
> As for the little tradition between Amilr and Kaval, they are adults, but they are adults in a nomadic warrior culture. No matter how your culture may prepare you for it or justify it that kind of thing likely leaves and has left its mark on more than a few people/members of the culture. Given they were both kids of close age adopted into it from rough circumstance, I thought it fitting they had self-soothing rituals between the two of them. 
> 
> Context if anyone wants it for "He's part of an Order of murderers...": Kaval was adopted as a child; he knows about Galidraan, obviously, and the Jedi role in it. He may not hold Kenobi accountable for it because Kenobi was a child when it happened, but he, like many, still has a chip against the Order for it. Beyond that, he was raised on _stories_ about Galidraan, not personal experience. Given their nomadic, it would make sense for the Haat Mando'ade to have a more oralist tradition of passing down history, meaning some details get exaggerated or understated or left out entirely.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wondered about this chapter and it's even been reworked a couple of times. It is fairly violent, and I will take under advisement if anyone thinks I should up the rating because this kind of violence, while somewhat canon-typical, feels like it could cross from the T-rating into the M-rating.

Dock working… In any other context it would be considered fairly standard manual labor. Move things off ships, move them on. That is not the case on Kuat. It is hot, heavy labor. Six sentients are required alone to hold up ship panels, and then there are the welders. After the first hour, they stop trying to avoid hands or clothes. If you get burned, you should have been faster at moving out of their way. Everyone there is too tired and too worn down to care. Obi-Wan is not the only one with a sturdy outer layer (one of few, but not the only one) and he learns quickly why the others take their jackets off and leave them nearby to fetch after work. 

By his second day of dock work, three people have left permanently. One lost a leg that day to a piece of stray equipment that took it off, and Obi-Wan had been shoved into his place to hold up the panel. His leg was still there, on the platform, and the sparks from the welders and the heat makes the blood smell sharpen to a tang in his nose and tighten his throat. Obi-Wan had to step around and over it the rest of the day. The man was dragged away. Other slaves had little doubt about his fate. No one had to guess, and even Obi-Wan knew on some level the man was not long for the living. Obi-Wan swallows bile whenever he thinks of it, and has no clue how he managed the day of.

Dropped panels, especially if they scratch or dent, become a reason for punishment. Punishment, Obi-Wan learns, is extracted as they leave but before they are returned to the slave quarters. Despite his reassignment, he is still kept in the same quarters and as his mind tries to keep some semblance of sanity, it gives him repeated reminders of his crèche clan. It hurts in unexpected ways, twisting happy childhood memories and tainting them with the suffering here. He has dreams he is back in the crèche, but the too-familiar and too-oft felt weight of the slave collar weighs down his attempts to run with his agemates.

Obi-Wan is careful, after his reassignment. Lar'tin was right. He needs to survive to help those children. So, he is careful and does what he can for days to avoid punishment right up until he _does_ kark it all up and then...

The next time an overseer goes to shock Obi-Wan, it doesn’t hit. He should take the opportunity, fake the pain, but…

He is shocked in a different sense. The pain simply isn’t _there_.

There is a second, brief and fleeting though it may be, where he and the overseer just stare at one another. He wastes the precious little time that he has to try and get away or overpower the man in an exhausted, hazy shock. The hands that take hold of his arms nearly slip off – would if they did not find their purchase on his jacket.

The jacket nearly swamps him – three days in with him picking fights with the overseers and they started cutting his food down. They kept it up until they had him on less than he needed to function on a slow Temple day, never mind working the lower dockside of the ship-construction line. He has lost more weight than he thought he would, but he has also taken on more punishment than most would consider smart.

He could have kept his head down early on. Should have, by all accounts.

_He cannot watch people hurt children._

The hands pull him back and there is someone else to guide him.

_Ruusaan._

“Come on, ad.” She puts a hand on his cheek. “Oh, you really got yourself in it, didn’t you?”

“Ruusaan… They keep the children in the warehouse.”

She slips back from whatever it was that was so near tender in her look and she is professional. “Take him.”

She is guiding Obi-Wan toward a Zabrak man that Obi-Wan hasn’t met. Or... he might have. His mind is sluggish to return answers on why he looks familiar.

“Kaval, consider yourself charmed.” He grabs Obi-Wan’s arm. “You’re here looking for kids, right?”

Obi-Wan nods as they run.

“Take me to them.”

Were he more aware, more attuned, he would protest and try to buy time to learn something about the man in front of him and if he can trust him with the safety of the children in question. He doesn’t know Kaval, after all. He could be anyone. But he’s so exhausted. Instead of making that connection, he just _does_. He acts. He doesn’t think, he just runs. He runs them through the streets, ducking into alleyways and hiding spots as overseers pass that he did not even realize he _knew_. He has learned these streets without meaning to.

The running (and stumbling, he is not too proud to admit) hurts, but it doesn’t hurt worse than an electric shock, and it doesn’t hurt worse than the beatings. The percussion in his knees will ache in the morning, the joints will protest when he stops, but the adrenaline numbs and silences the worst of it for now and drags him away from the docks, up to the main streets and towards the warehouse.

It has never looked grayer or deadlier than it does in the harsh daylight. The things that cannot be seen at first light or in the dead of night stand out so much stronger with nothing to mute them. What looks like it could be bloodstains, the chipping and peeling paint falling from the duracrete walls like the building itself is weeping for all the suffering inside. The windows that are clouded and dirty, likely from night after night of dozens upon dozens of sentients being crowded in it and the overseers and their bosses never seeing the need to clean the facility itself so long as the equipment inside is working.

The equipment never took much of Obi-Wan’s notice. Only ever in the space at dark, he didn’t even know what it really was. It took up space they needed for sleeping, and it was large and bulky and there were more than a few times he had bruised a hip or a rib bumping into it. Now, he could see the heavy machinery and he could, through the pain and haze, feel the Force raging against it.

The children, kept daily at the warehouse, were the ones working the machines. The ones too short or too young were minding the toddlers and infants, keeping them as out of trouble as possible, but any child over what looked to be the age of seven was working a machine that would ruthlessly rip their limbs if they were not careful. There were some older adults in the mix, and there were some workers there that had been too badly injured to be of use in outdoor work.

Kaval gets to work immediately. He finds the overseer in the warehouse standing with his back toward the entrance, holding an older woman’s arm in his hand. Obi-Wan does not know if it is his mind blocking out the words or if he is just entirely numbed to everything around him, in shock even, but he cannot understand the content as much as he can understand the implication. It is, as most things from the overseers’ mouths, a threat to her safety and likely her life.

Kaval makes quick work of pulling the man – and it is a man, with buzzed hair across a green skull, though Obi-Wan is not sure which species he is – by his collar. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m going to enjoy this next part a lot.”

He punches the man in the face, the metal of his hand guard cutting into the overseer's face and leaving a bloody gash across his nose and right brow, before pulling a vibroblade from his hip. He works the man to the ground, the knife at his neck as he fumbles for a set of keys at his hips.

“Which one?”

“I don’t know!” The man looks crazed, and Obi-Wan unfreezes from his spot. The children don’t need to see this; he rounds them up and pulls them towards where other adults are trying to put together a living, breathing shield. He is not the only one who thinks to cut them off from what they are witnessing. What they’ve seen is enough – this is not… This is not the way, as much as it may be the _only_ way right now. It shouldn’t be.

He is not fighting, and he should feel so useless for it, but he also cannot bring himself to expend that kind of energy. Emotion, since the fifth or sixth day, takes too much from him that he needs just to carry on surviving.

Kaval puts the knife more firmly on the neck of the overseer. “You know what kinds of poisons you can get on Dathomir, buddy?”

Dathomiri poison… Obi-Wan doesn’t know what to make of that. He’s read about them, about some of the ways they are meant to twist the mind or destroy the body to draw death out from the most carnal places. The Nightsisters and Nightbrothers, after all, are not the only inhabitants of that world soaked in darkness; they are only the most notorious ones.

Kaval leans closer. “The kind I’ve got on this… well. Got on is a bit of a misnomer. See, I know a woman on Dathomir who forges the vibroblades she sells with this poison. The heat from production makes the poison even stronger and when you get cut with it, it’s said it feels like acid being poured into your rent limbs. All the while, you’re screaming your ears out because you’re seeing your sins played out like a madman is running a theater on the back of your skull.

“So. Which key to undo the collars?”

Kaval is enjoying this. He is lethal, he is terrifying. He is all the stories of the Mandalorian warriors before and at Galidraan - of the man, Fett, that ripped five Jedi apart with his bare hands - given form. And he is enjoying the entire exchange, the power he holds as he lords over a man's life.

The man, the overseer, vicious as he is, quivers slightly in fear even as he sneers at Kaval and tries to throw a punch with the only semi-free arm.

Kaval twists the blade up and to the right to meet it, cutting the man’s knuckles and making him groan. “Which. Key?”

He grunts something and Obi-Wan can’t really hear it, not from here, but it seems to be the answer he wants. He switches through the keys to the oblong, gunmetal gray one streaked with one singular gold line through it. Kaval makes quick work of jamming the knife into the man’s wrist with a half-hearted aside telling him to enjoy his last few minutes.

He gets to Obi-Wan and the relief from the damned thing being removed is short lived when Kaval’s hand comes up, palm towards Obi-Wan and fingers lightly graze what must be some astonishingly ugly burns.

“We’re getting the kids out now. Taking them on my ship to some people we can trust to help them find their families, find new ones, reintegrate – all that kark and osik.” Kaval puts the same hand over Obi-Wan’s mouth as he starts to protest, equally gently. “Nah, kid. You’re going with Ruusaan. She’ll help with the worst of it, I’ll get those kids sorted, and then I’m meeting you three and going with you when they take you home.”

“How do I know the kids will be safe?”

He doesn’t want to focus on the man laying on the ground and careening into himself, laying in the fetal position, wailing and moaning as the poison works its way through his system. He had given Kaval what he wanted and was still dying. Part of him, a traitorous part that he knows is only human, is glad to know this man is gone from the world, but the part of him that has been so long taught to alleviate suffering feels the terror in the Force even as he feels the flicker of life dim and leave the galaxy.

Kaval ruffles Obi-Wan’s hair. It’s gotten a bit longer, but mostly it’s greasy and brittle from the sudden dietary change and lack of regular cleaning. “Ruusaan sorted you with a comm unit. I’ll put all the numbers you need to check on them in there and then you can all call across the family when you want to.”

Obi-Wan, in any other state, would see this as too easy. Would protest and fight and challenge everything until the second he was proven wrong. And yet he goes with this plan. He falls into the motions of following orders, his mind taking relief where it comes, including in not having to make the decisions, only move. He helps Kaval release all the collars from the other slaves. He helps take the children to the ship – the ones who are not immediately claimed by adults in the warehouse, at least – and watches Kaval pull blankets down from storage and pull out sweets for them, talking softly and trying to distract them. The adults will be given papers by a forger he knows, the sentient responsible already en-route and in contact with several of Kaval’s _other_ contacts.

Kaval has done a one-eighty in personality, but Obi-Wan knows that the overseer’s last moments will haunt him as much as the last several weeks promise to.

Kaval gets the children settled before rotating Obi-Wan a bit. “You’re worse for wear, and that jacket needs cleaned. You’ll be okay.”

He doesn’t put a blanket around Obi-Wan, but he does hand him an overly sweet candy that almost hurts Obi-Wan’s tongue. He’s had mush for weeks, he doesn’t know how the children are handling it, having been captive so much longer than him.

Kaval closes up the ship with instructions for the older kids on how to get out if anyone wants to stretch or move around and a promise from them to look out for the younger children. The few adults that got out are suspicious of Kaval, and he’s seen more than one try to subtly distance Obi-Wan from him. When that doesn’t work, they focus on the children. Kaval may have freed them, but they recognize the inherent danger he still poses.

“They’re going to be too scared,” he explains as he walks Obi-Wan to where Ruusaan’s ship is hidden. “But they’re young. If it starts now, they’ll get used to being treated like they're people and they matter.”

Kaval puts his hand back on Obi-Wan, this time between his shoulders.

It has been a long while since he was in a situation where someone outside Quinlan was so physically affectionate with him. He is not used to it, and yet between Ruusaan with her habit of tapping him when she approached or to get his attention before everything happened, and now Kaval’s casual support Obi-Wan wonders if, perhaps, he had been missing it without realizing.

Ruusaan has a cut on her face and Amilr looks miffed, and while their anger does not feel directed at him, it still feels like they're on the brink of violence. Instead of leaving and finding the fight, they pull him into the ship and start working on getting the worst of the injuries addressed. Kaval dips out shortly after handing him off, saying he can be back in two days, standard, and that he would rather they meet off-world.

“Balmorra is nearby. I have some contacts on-world, too.” Amilr offers.

Kaval scowls at that. “No. They’re another manufacture-heavy planet. I don’t know the slave trade there, but it’s best not to take the risk. Raxxa’s close, and the air will be a lot cleaner there, anyway.”

So, Kaval leaves and Obi-Wan still has questions he is too exhausted to ask.

Ruusaan nudges him. “Take off the jacket and shirt. I need to see what I’m looking at, injury wise.”

It’s not a pretty sight. Old bruises have barely healed under new ones, cuts look a speck of dirt away from infected, but they don't get that far because tremors start as he moves his hands towards his shirt.

Ruusaan is quick to put an arm around his shoulder, and while it doesn’t stop anything – not the tremors, not the pain associated, nor the weariness falling on him as he finally starts accepting that he is _out_ – it does comfort him. It takes the most emotional parts of the last several weeks and numbs them. He has to acknowledge them, work through them. Not yet. Not until he is safe.

But Ruusaan holds him through the tremors and pats his hair as he starts to calm. Amilr puts tea to his lips, his hands still too unsteady to hold the cup himself and encourages him to drink.

 _“Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’ad_ , Obi-Wan Kenobi.” He knows those words and it’s so much right now he can’t really _feel_ his reaction. “I am so sorry, ad’ika.”

He feels himself nodding off, but he tries his best to respond. _“Ni kyr… Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’buir.”_

It’s a bit slurred, and Amilr laughs at him for it, but the sentiment must come across. If he were more awake, less worn down, perhaps he would not have said a thing. Would have done his to be polite without committing to anything. Would have been _smart_ about all of this and thought things through.

But family…

Family sounds nice. Family sounds like comfort and like safety in a way he has not known in what feels like such a long time. He drifts off hearing Amilr talk over a comm with Kaval about the main slavers, talking about interrogating and tracking down the heads of the ring, finding the sellers. He doesn’t process it, hardly retains it even as he hears it.

The last thing he is aware of is Ruusaan shifting, laying him down against something almost soft, and pulling a blanket over him. The ghosting of her hand across his face. It stings on an old bruise, but it is the kindest touch he’s had from someone not a slave in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha if only rewriting Chapter 15 was going as smoothly as the rewrites/edits of this chapter did. Either way, I am Getting There on chapter 15 and have until next Wednesday on it with nothing else for class. At least for a while. 
> 
> Worldbuilding Notes (for the interested):  
> Yeah... I don't know a lot about ship-building clearly but I made some Educated Guesses based on how Republic ships look how they would be built. 
> 
> I guess this one is more of a storytelling note, but no matter how much we love Obi-Wan physical and mental exhaustion doesn't mess around. It was tempting to give him this big badass moment where he escapes on his own when the shock doesn't work, but he is still a human and he's spent days doing physically taxing labor and trying to survive. Even as a Jedi, I didn't think he would have that kind of energy. He's very passive in this chapter, I know, but it's largely because of that exhaustion. He gets more active later. 
> 
> The impressions Obi-Wan gets when he's exhausted are really fun to write - I want you to take whatever interpretation of them you will, but I wrote them with the idea that the Force is more directly communicating with him without him realizing it. Because he is too tired to notice/to shield he is far more open to it (like Anakin was a few chapters ago, though Anakin's was lack of experience in shielding). Of course, as mentioned, this comes with its own risks. 
> 
> Remember what I said about Clan Eldar is a "best case scenario"? Yeah. I didn't mean that lightly. They're still from a culture that glorifies violence, hence what we see from Kaval throughout much of this chapter. I understand if you find the violence he enacts cathartic or retributive, but he is still glorying in the violence and that's still Not Conducive To A Long-Term Functioning Society. It also means that there are not, necessarily, healthy emotional management techniques within the family.  
> Sure, Kaval makes a positive emotional decision to seem harmless after killing the overseer, but he didn't consider what the children were seeing when he killed him to begin with. If you're wondering what angle I'm writing it from, it's more or less very traumatized individuals who operate on the assumption that the trauma is over, therefore they are fine. 
> 
> I am not a chemist or scientist (unless you count being a political scientist) so I completely went for the Rule of Cool on that Dathomiri poison. I'll take suggestions for names, though, if anyone has one. 
> 
> I know kark is the Star Wars equivalent of "fuck", but the alliteration of "kark and osik" was too good to pass up and felt like, even with the _actual_ meaning, something that would have caught on as an idiom. 
> 
> I might write a side one-shot of what Ruusaan and Amilr got up to simultaneous to this chapter, but I'm still working on some stuff for the main story and a potential side-story of Breha taking the throne of Alderaan so it will have to wait. 
> 
> Obi-Wan's response, when it mentions he slurred some of the words, is entirely comedic but I don't know how clear I was so I'm going to put it out there: it sounded like he said shabuir, not sa'buir, because he's tired. Ruusaan and Amilr absolutely got what he meant, but I had to do it. 
> 
> Another potential side story: the interlude of meeting up with Kaval on Raxxa, assuming those details don't make their way into the main story after-the-fact. I have Chapter 14 written, and have mentioned I'm rewriting Chapter 15 significantly, which does have some consequences for what I had written up to Chapter 22 or so to this point, so a lot of the later story is also being reworked. 
> 
> Timeline Notes: 
> 
> He's been a slave just over a full month at this point, putting him at two and a half, nearly three months away from the Temple. It'll take him another six days to get back, which puts it at a full three months when he does return. 
> 
> Mando'a:  
> ad: child  
> ad'ika: affectionate nick name for one's child, lit. small child or little one  
> Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad/sa'buir: I know your name as my child/parent. The response is not Canon Mando'a, but Obi-Wan trying to acknowledge what she's saying to him while drained and in the middle of an adrenaline crash. He's not entirely Mentally Aware at the moment.


	14. Chapter 14

Quinlan swears. Even if it’s quiet, he shouldn’t, he has a kid living with him now and he remembers his early days as Aayla’s Master when he found out just _how quickly_ kids could pick up profanity, but he doesn’t stop himself because the last thing he expected to see first thing in the morning was half-microwaved dead ginger dozing away on his couch.

Obi-Wan wakes with the slight hiss of his voice and Quinlan wonders what kind of banthadruk he pulled himself into this time. He has a heavy jacket on, and he isn’t wearing the Jedi habit or robes; wherever he was, it was undercover. Obi-Wan isn’t necessarily bad at it – the broader Jedi Order had certainly produced worse – but he isn’t particularly good at it either, not by Shadow standards. He looks like shit all around; Quinlan isn’t even looking for detail knowing that seeing anything more than surface level will just frustrate him. The last thing he needs right now is to drive his friend away before he can help him.

Obi-Wan barely stands out in the Force. Quinlan can sense him, and he’s _there_ , but the definition isn’t so clear. The signature and the details are all wrong, like someone put a filter over a holoprojector playing a familiar video. Skewed, is the word that comes to mind. Obi-Wan gets up but he moves like he hurts. Quinlan is there in a second, gloves off in order to get a read without making Obi-Wan explain a thing.

Obi-Wan’s got the edges of fear in the Force. And pain – that’s sharp, even through the inexplicable _blur_ that is around him even with the application of psychometry. He rolls his eyes at Quinlan before moving away and shrugging his jacket off. He looks like he’s steeling himself against something before he gives Quinlan a hand. Quinlan doesn’t have the time to be frustrated Obi-Wan is acting cagey, because everything hits him all too fast.

Slave collars, beating, shocks, fear, anger, fear, amends, fear. Pain rings and echoes across all of it. And that’s all that Obi-Wan is letting through. Quinlan can feel the strain Obi-Wan is taking to try and mask or shield as much of it as possible, but Quinlan has known Obi-Wan since he was six; he knows where and how he hides himself in the Force.

Nothing he sees when he goes digging looks any better.

Quinlan could scream at his best friend and it would be entirely justified. Instead, he makes some tea, sits it down in front of Obi-Wan and waits for him to hesitantly take it and sip at it. “You’re such a damned idiot.”

He has the decency to look ashamed. They both know that on some level, he’s faking it. Sure, he's upset he got caught, and he's understanding of why Quinlan is upset with him, but he would do it again if he had to. It's just who he is. “I could do something, Quin.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.” And besides, they both know that Quinlan would make a similar choice if he was put in the same position. Maybe he would have been more careful, or tried to break out or gather more information - cozy up to the overseers if he could, in the hopes he got intel through exposure. That's not the main issue. 

“I know. It was stupid – it was an impulse move made when I was barely conscious.” Obi-Wan folds in on himself a bit. His face is more open when he does that, and Quinlan has never seen fit to tell him that if it would take away one insight into his friend’s feelings. “I couldn’t take it back, though. Everything I’ve read, that’s not really how it works. I wasn’t about to test it…”

Quinlan is sitting on the floor, across the coffee table from Obi-Wan. Distant, he knows. But he doesn’t know what he needs in this moment, much less what Obi-Wan needs. And he knows that, having said what he said, not testing the waters was a smart move. He was in the custody, effectively, of Mandalorians. One on three, and sure the odds were there but he still needed to get back to Coruscant, and he was physically and emotionally compromised after the mission. Those odds looked worse and worse the more Quinlan thought about it. Master Ti or any other Shadow Assignment Officer might even have argued, in debrief, that it was the _smart_ choice both short and long term.

Obi-Wan’s hands curl around the cup and he stares into it. His fingers are bonier than they were when he left. 

Obi-Wan has always had problems keeping track of time in his work, leading to him forgetting to eat and to him getting less sleep than he should. He’s always been a little bony around the edges, but that’s how he is. It is something quintessentially Obi-Wan. Bant, Garen, Quinlan himself, they all loved him as he was and did what they could to try and keep him from completely forgetting himself.

His fingers aren’t like they’ve ever been, as far as Quinlan has seen. They hurt to look at.

Quinlan asked Master Yoda, once, as one of the only people who Quinlan knew had spent much one-on-one time at all with Obi-Wan as a youngling and away from more communal settings. The Cosmic Force, he had said, could do that. It could make people forgetful.

_Tell him, Master Jinn does, that live in the moment, Padawan Kenobi should. Good advice for many this is. For one strong in the Cosmic Force, extend the moment does into all moments. Learn, Padawan Kenobi must, to understand the here apart from the now._

Quinlan still doesn’t understand what that meant, but he knows Obi-Wan was getting better before this mission.

“Did you eat at all?”

“After Alderaan, yeah. When I could.”

“When you could?”

There’s a shuffling noise of a door and Obi-Wan doesn’t answer because before Quinlan can ask Anakin to stay in his room, ask him to wait a minute instead of him seeing someone he already cares for in such rough shape, Anakin has launched himself into Obi-Wan’s arms. Obi hasn’t smiled like that in a long time, and Anakin immediately flits a hand to his hair.

“It got so long!”

He isn’t wrong, per say. Nearly three months away has given Obi-Wan’s hair time to grow out a bit. Quinlan remembers, briefly, seeing Anakin in Mos Espa when he first noticed Jinn on-world. He supposes dried out, brittle hair wouldn’t be much of a surprise to someone from a desert world, and the grime might not be an unfamiliar sight either. Seeing someone in a spot of rough shape, either for that matter. Still, as Quinlan turns back toward the kitchenette in the space, he hears a soft hiss and Anakin muttering.

“Who did that to you?”

He sounds angry. Not a good thing, definitely not supposed to encourage that. Quinlan sighs as he puts together quick breakfasts – some cheeses and fruits and breads he kept in the apartment as quick snacks for himself (and now Anakin, and he had nearly forgotten how nice it was having a Padawan around) on a cutting board but not even really organized. The point is getting food into Obi-Wan and Anakin, not whether it looks good.

Anakin’s hand is hovering over burns on Obi-Wan’s neck. The jacket had hidden them earlier, and Quinlan supposed not looking too closely was his own fault after.

“Master…” Anakin looks to Quinlan, but Quinlan can already guess where Obi-Wan got those burns and he has another one of those sinking realizations.

“Kid, don’t call me Master.” He waves at him. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Just Quinlan, or Quin, is fine unless we’re in front of the Council, alright?”

Anakin looks a little confused, but he nods all the same. Quinlan is very familiar with the game he’s been playing of dodging therapy sessions, but he will definitely be checking in with Healer Sarun to make sure Anakin is attending and participating to whatever degree he's comfortable.

Anakin looks back at Obi-Wan. “They can do a lot of damage turned up that high…”

And yeah. The burns on his neck are… grisly. Quinlan has a suspicion they’re going to be around a while. Obi-Wan’s hand comes up to them, gently rubs them even as he flinches. “I will be fine, Anakin.”

“That’s what we said all the time on Tatooine, too.” The kid worms his way back against Obi-Wan’s side, hugging him tightly with one arm while he looks towards Quinlan. “But a lot of times when people said it, they didn’t get better.”

He’s opening up, at least. More success than Quinlan has had on his own. It makes sense, when he thinks about it. This is... He's not being asked, but he knows that at least one person will _get it_ in a way many Jedi just don't. That it's someone he already likes and trusts makes it easier. Quinlan hopes it reinforces the trust he's working on building between Anakin and himself, that he and Obi-Wan are clearly friends. When he probes with the Force, he can feel the beginnings, edges even of a Force bond between the two not unlike the ones that Obi shares with Bant and Garen – friendship, understanding, confidence. Obi-Wan is not one to trust easily, but sometimes the Force tells him who to look to and who to look from.

Quinlan is glad for Anakin's trust. Even when he had been Aayla’s master, if someone didn’t get along with her or made her uncomfortable the understanding was any hang-outs had to be short and away from Quinlan’s apartment; most often, it meant that person was cut out entirely. The last person he wants to cut is Obi-Wan, who still looks up to Quinlan as the mischievous friend that got him into hilarious trouble as a child as much as Quinlan looks up to his constant affable demeanor, despite everything that seems to cross his path. 

(He might protest that, but Quinlan’s been in his head. He knows those childhood memories are happy ones, surrounded in precious light.)

“We have very good healers in the Temple, Anakin. And I’ll do what they say.”

“If you did what healers wanted, you would be in the Halls right now.” Quinlan throws a piece of bread at Obi-Wan, who catches it and at least sticks it in his mouth. Anakin squirms a bit to grab some cheese and fruit in the meantime before settling back into the couch. He’s still glued to Obi-Wan, and he passes some of what he’s grabbed to Obi-Wan. “I’m pretty sure Bant qualifies for an engineering degree for all the ways she’s tried to keep you in the Halls.”

Obi-wan considers that with a laugh. “I suppose you’re right. I should tell her to put in the application – between the two of us we could probably remember enough to get someone to sign off.”

“That was _not_ the point and you know it.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “I’ll go to the Halls later, I promise.”

Quin nods. Like there is a chance in all the Sith hells he is going to give Obi-Wan the opportunity to forget to go or to elect not to. Restless as Obi-Wan can get, the Halls have never been a great spot for him, being asked to stay still for longer periods of time in recovery. Now that he's no longer a padawan, though, Quinlan may be able to talk whichever Healer he is assigned into letting him do recovery outside, as long as he stays with someone. “Hey, Ani. Go change your clothes and grab your practice saber. I bet after the Halls we can get Obi-Wan to do some katas and light training with us, if we've still got time before your classes.”

Anakin lights up and bolts for it. Obi-Wan likely won't be cleared for katas and physical training for some time, but when he was a senior padawan he was good at teaching and correcting forms, helping younger students understand where they were going wrong and how to moderate it. It will help, Quinlan hopes, in settling him a bit more now that he is back in the Temple. 

“I want you to go to Ilum with us.”

“What?”

“I was going to send him with younglings, the tradition and all that.” Quinlan glances at the door, hoping Anakin takes as long as he usually does to figure out the habit. He’s getting better, but it takes some getting used to. “But I don’t think I should. He needs support, Obi, and he looks at you like you’re the entire foundation of his stability.

“You can’t throw yourself around with complete abandon just because you’re on solo missions now. That kid counts on you coming home, and so do I. You’re my best friend.”

Obi-Wan nods, somber. “I… I thought things would go differently. I asked the wrong question at the wrong time to the wrong person, is all, and… Things went sideways.”

“That’s one word for it. Force, at least this time it wasn’t accidental marriage.”

It goes without saying that accidental adoption is something they can work with, work around.

"Isn't Ilum a bit of a ways off for him?"

Quinlan nods. "It is, but I wanted to ask you now. I wanted to give you time to think about it."

Obi-Wan nods as Anakin comes running out, bouncing at Quinlan’s heels and looking up towards Obi-Wan. He’s nine years old, and he is finally acting like it. The tension of learning years of material and of dealing with knowing he is free though others aren’t are bleeding out of him however temporarily in his excitement and Quinlan will take the small victory when he gets it.

The therapist said he was doing better before he started dodging sessions, that it would be a long road ahead and Quinlan has come back from enough truly awful missions to _know_ that it will be a long time before Anakin has worked through everything. All the more reason to start doubling down on making sure he goes to the appointments as much as he can without making the kid feel forced. The powerlessness of watching this kid struggle, and not being able to help grates. After the disaster that split him and Aayla up, he doesn’t _want_ to feel helpless. He wants to be able to wrap Anakin up and stop things from hurting him more than they already have. But he has to settle for teaching him that yes, the galaxy sucks, but there is always something good to be found and he has to look for it or the world will be all too dark and dangerous.

Obi-Wan is a good way to teach that. He is a light-spot. Even after Melida/Daan, as traumatized and jumpy and angry as he had been for years after, Quinlan never doubted he was rooted very firmly in the vaunted Light they were taught about. Even now, he is only dimmed, not darkened. Obi-Wan has always been a strange mix of realist and optimist. He understands the darkness in people and expects it to exist just as much as he will look for the good in them. It's what makes him good at his job, Quinlan knows, and what draws people to him. Even after missions that felt like they ripped every good thing out of Quinlan and twisted them around in order to throw them into the fire, Obi-Wan, like Luminara and Garen, had made him want to do better. To work at overcoming instead of succumbing. 

Obi-Wan shrugs the jacket back on and Quinlan feels him become muted in the Force. Close up, and he can still feel him nearby, but Obi-Wan has always been just a shade quieter than most in the Force; there are whispers around Shadow-restricted areas about recruiting him because of it.

Anakin glares at the jacket like it’s personally offended him, but he doesn’t say anything.

The walk to the Halls is longer than Quinlan thinks it is, and he watches Obi-Wan shrug off the bits of pain that come up. He has that look on his face he has gotten since he was a child.

He’s ignoring pain, and it’s numbing him a bit to his surroundings. It’s a dangerous instinct and one the Shadows would train out the second they spotted it. Shadow work is brutal, can be some of the hardest that anyone undertakes in the Order and it has a ridiculously high turnover rate due to people signing up and not realizing what they were getting into. It requires a very specific kind of drive and temperament, and many in the Order have been taught or trained away from that kind of mentality. Still, Quinlan wonders at some of those rumors. The training would keep him on-world a while, well after he recovered even, but... if the rumors are true, Obi-Wan might not be a bad candidate. 

“So what did you do on Alderaan that took so long?”

Obi-Wan startles. “Well, I wasn’t just on Alderaan. I ended up on Kuat for quite a while.”

He looks comfortable. The jacket swamps him a bit, but there is little doubt in Quinlan’s mind that once he’s back at his normal it’ll fit him rather nicely. He is calm in a way he isn’t usually. How much of that is a well-crafted mask and how much of it is the crash after a long period of stress Quinlan can’t be sure for another few hours.

Obi-Wan is quiet in the Force, he is not usually calm. The quiet is a mask, and Quinlan knows it, for all the things that Obi-Wan fiercely guards and keeps private. He allows things to slip through with Quinlan and Anakin, but he is also entirely calm in the foreboding, storm-warning sense Quinlan remembers from a tropical world with regular hurricanes.

Obi-Wan says he experiences the Force as a great vastness, and that the people, places, plants and animals he interacts with all occupy the space as constructs of sound within it. Quinlan’s certainly glanced it, once, but he doesn’t fully understand it. His experience of the Force has always been one of muddled feelings and impressions. Stray thoughts that linger on an object or in a room.

When Obi-Wan is agitated is when Quinlan has come the closest to understanding. The space around him seems to pick up in tempo as much as Obi-Wan might hide himself behind his mask of quiet. Calmness is a new thing, and it makes Quinlan balk.

Kuat is not necessarily a terrible place, but it has a burgeoning reputation. Stuck on Kuat and with these injuries, Quinlan can only imagine what else will be found. “I’m going ahead and finding Bant, okay?”

Obi-Wan nods and Anakin looks between them. “Do I have to come with? Can I walk with Obi-Wan?”

Quinlan smiles, masking himself in the Force as much as he normally does when undercover. “Of course, you can, kid.”

He hears Anakin talking about how Mace promised Anakin would know as soon as Obi-Wan got back, but it was still ‘absolutely wizard’ that he had stayed with him and Quinlan. Quinlan has the same question as Anakin about that one, and he hears the answer just before he exits ear-shot.

“Ani, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Quin is great at undercover work and operational security measures when he’s in the field.

“But I’ve known him since we were about seven. And he has used the same door code since we were thirteen.”

Anakin’s laugh carries more than Obi-Wan’s voice does. Quin starts jogging towards the Halls and when Vokara gives him a look for barging in, he just returns it with his most pathetic face.

She has always had a soft spot for him, and Quinlan feels no shame exploiting it when the need arises.

“It’s Obi-Wan…”

She sighs. “Bring the idiot in, then.”

Obi-Wan is still entertaining Anakin as they walk in, and Bant already stands prepared to hold Obi-Wan down if need be. It’s more telling for those adults in the room that Obi-Wan doesn’t even fight Bant, though they keep the surprise as muted as they can to keep Anakin from worrying.

All jokes aside, Obi-Wan is the kind of patient that gets antsier the longer he has to be with the healers. He becomes more likely to avoid the healers if he knows going in that he has to stay a while. That he is not downplaying a thing, that he merely sits and lets Bant start analyzing the first impressions of injuries, is not worrying per say, but it certainly puts the others on a level of notice.

“Anakin, you have class soon, right?” Quinlan _needs_ to talk to Vokara and Bant and preferably two hours ago.

“But Obi-Wan just got back!” Anakin fidgets a bit, trying to be mature but failing at it. "And it might not take long - you said we might be able to do training all together when he was done."

“I’ll still be around later, Ani,” he gives Quinlan a sheepish look, “Assuming Quinlan’s alright with it.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a plague and a scourge, always have been. You only kept away when we were teenagers because our masters argued enough to drive both of us insane.” Quinlan is smiling and Obi-Wan is rolling his eyes, the joke older than they cared to admit.

Qui-Gon may not have approved of Quinlan as an influence, and the Padawans tried to respect his position by not spending too much time in the Jinn-Kenobi apartment. Master Tholme had thought the whole thing ridiculous, the true source of their arguments. Either way, the amount of free time that Obi-Wan spent with Quinlan in their padawan years had certainly gotten some interesting comments from both Masters, given neither was usually seen in-Temple without the other if their times overlapped in any way. 

‘Plague and scourge’ may have been Qui-Gon’s words applied to Quinlan, but that is neither here nor there.

Anakin grumbles before leaving. A promise to stick around abates the worst of Anakin’s stubbornness. The second the door closes behind him, Quinlan and Bant round on Obi-Wan.

Quinlan isn’t sure Bant or Vokara want the answers they’re about to get – he’s seen enough and knows _he_ doesn’t want more information on what went on. But he does know that they need to game-plan Obi-Wan’s treatment (and someone is going to have to game-plan how to handle this Mandalorian snag with Obi-Wan), and they need at least some answers in order to do that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worldbuilding/Narrative Decision-Making Notes: 
> 
> 1\. Like I said, there might be a side story eventually about the trip back to Coruscant, but I decided to skip it in the main story for Narrative Purposes (mainly because I didn't feel it added anything to the main narrative line).  
> 2\. I know banthashit is a common profanity, but I opted for banthadruk from looking up other in-universe profanities.  
> 3\. Beskar is described as having Force-muting properties, but I couldn't find anything very specific on how much so I went with the idea that it suppresses both the impression one can get of the wearer (external) and it suppresses the connection/ability of the person wearing it (internal). Because the fabric lining of the jacket, as mentioned a few weeks ago, has beskar woven in it isn't as complete as, say, beskar'gam would be in cutting Obi-Wan off but it does do a lot to mute his visions and his "sixth sense" through the Force. I realized I didn't explain this very well in-universe but I don't want it to feel like exposition so, here it is for the interested.  
> 4\. I think, personally, given they're an intelligence entity that the Shadows would operate more like a traditional military/military intelligence body, hence the assignment officer role. They're an entity within the Jedi, and sure they operate by the Code, but they also have to operate in the real world and work within the constraints that places; adopting a more militaristic attitude or set-up to their infrastructure would make sense for intel gathering, processing, analyzing, and for presentation as needed to external Jedi entities would make sense logistically.  
> 5\. I don't know how grounded the "Obi-Wan hates the healers" trope is in canon, but I like to think about what caused it. In this case, given his age, it's less an ingrained habit and more a resistance to being still and in one place for so long. As I mentioned, he gets restless in the healers, essentially, whereas when researching he would still feel like he's _doing_ something.  
> 6\. I've answered this in comments, but I've somewhat retconned the timeline of Quinlan and Aayla's partnership being split up to make it about a year before this story takes place; Aayla, right now, is on an extended Outer Rim mission with Master Tholme but will be coming back later in the fic.  
> 7\. Did I drop a little into a bit of character study of what I think makes Obi-Wan a great character (i.e. the whole thing about understanding that there are bad people but still assuming that most are good/that there is good to be found in most people)? Yes. Yes, I did, because based on what I see in canon I genuinely believe that was his main way of thinking, at least until ROTS, and potentially even after. And I think it's one of those differences between Anakin and Obi-Wan that are the key reason why Anakin flirts with the Dark Side so much in canon, while Obi-Wan _seems_ so resistant to it. He knows it's there, but he's not necessarily interested in what it offers.  
> 8\. My personal headcanon is ever since she was a junior healer, Vokara has been dealing with Obi-Wan and Quinlan's antics. She likes Quinlan because he actually reports in like he's supposed to (some of this would make more sense if I got more into what I thought would be Shadow training...) whereas a lot of people may not be as diligent, but she still remembers everything he and Obi-Wan got up to and just how much trouble Obi-Wan can get himself into. As such, her immediate response is "Ah. This idiot again. What happened now?" to literally either of them.  
> 9\. I love the headcanon that floats around that Qui-Gon didn't approve of Quinlan hanging around so much, but I also like the idea that for all his faults as a Master/as a teacher he still gave Obi-Wan that degree of autonomy in choosing his own friends/how to spend his free time. No, he doesn't like Quinlan. No, he's also not going to demand that Obi-Wan never hang out with him. We're going to get some of Qui-Gon's perspective on a lot next week (or the week after? I think it's Chapter 16 but it might be 17), but like I said. He's still a good person in this, he's also made bad calls in his pedagogy/care for Obi-Wan and those decisions had consequences. Good people can make bad decisions, and those can have consequences but I'm a big believer that it doesn't make you a bad person. Everyone messes up, even if you can't always come back from it, but that doesn't negate who you are at your core.
> 
> Timeline Notes:  
> This is about six days after the last chapter, in case I didn't mention it before.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mace being done with every Knight under 30 like he wasn't just as much of a mess...

Mace answers the call from Vokara shortly after receiving it, coming in to see Kenobi answering questions from his friends. Vokara nods her head towards the small room, door still open though Mace has to wonder, given that’s a breach of protocol, if that was a request from Kenobi. A way to feel safe, know he had an out.

Bant is putting a bacta patch along a particularly nasty burn on his neck and while Kenobi flinches he doesn’t say a thing about the pain. He’s sitting entirely still outside of the involuntary movements. Mace glances to Vokara.

“You have any clue what happened?”

“From what I can gather he got on the wrong side of some slavers.” She shakes her head. 

The unspoken ‘again’ is left to Mace’s imagination.

“And he didn’t report straight here?”

“Vos found him on his couch.”

“Of course, he did.”

"Someone helped him out, but doesn't look like it did much." Vokara offers.

Mace wonders at that. A piece of information to add to his growing personal cache on this entire mess.

Bant has her hands on her hips when Mace turns back. “Alright. Get your shirt off, let’s see the rest of the damage.”

Obi-Wan hisses, one of the first audible responses to pain since Mace walked in, as he slowly, gingerly works his shirt over his head.

Mace winces upon seeing his torso. It’s piles of bruises, as expected, but there are also ribs that look painfully out of alignment (besides being this side of too visible under some sections of loose skin from what is a clear and dramatic loss of weight) and burns predominately along his arms. One long one stretches under his arm and across his pectoral muscle and looks just slightly fresher than the others. It only distracts Mace from the electrical burns on his neck, angry and red but it must have been covered by a slave collar – and Mace is tabling his feelings on _that_ for later, given what he had learned over time of Kenobi’s history with slave collars – because it is not so noticeable as the burn on his torso.

Mace walks in and realizes the torso burn isn’t any newer, it’s that it’s infected and weeping, giving it what would otherwise be a new-burn-sheen. Mace wonders how much of a look at his injuries Obi-Wan had gotten, and how much of the pain he was feeling had been misinterpreted in his head, had become downplayed not out of conscious behavior but out of comparison to the other, simultaneous injuries. Obi-Wan knew better than to wait with these kinds of injuries, but he wouldn’t be the first to have made decisions based on an inaccurate mental catalogue of his injuries. They, as Jedi, were all fallible; prolonged pain and injury had a way of tricking most people. 

He can feel the headache brewing. It isn’t even 10:00, but he can _feel the headache brewing_.

What is it about Yoda and his line that attracts all the trouble the galaxy has to offer? Mace shoves the thought aside and helps Kenobi keep his arm up when Bant tells him to lift it. He may not have asked or admitted it, but his arm had started shaking. The kid has circles under his eyes and looks like the last thing he needs is any kind of lecture.

Force, they need to get this kid in a program, get him going in some kind of direction before he just starts taking every mission he can trying to find it himself and risks burnout. Wouldn’t be the first time they’d seen it in a young Knight. Try as the Order might to prevent it, to teach their students the signs and how to avoid it, many young Knights were chomping at the bit to figure out who they were apart from their Masters. Often, that meant making their own mistakes.

He doesn’t want to lecture the kid, but he does have responsibilities to uphold. “Care to explain why you haven’t reported to the Council?”

“I got in in the middle of the night cycle.” Obi-Wan is rarely soft-spoken. He is not boisterous or loud, but he is not _soft_ , not this kind of exhausted quiet. “Slept off some of the time and figured I would come in today.”

“Well, I’ll take that as an excuse this time, but you’re going to do better in the future.”

“Common courtesy? Let you and the other Councilmembers get your sleep?”

"You and I both know I wasn't talking about your excuses."

Obi-Wan chuckles at that. It's a welcome sound and not just to him. Vos relaxes a bit, and Vokara finally looks comfortable enough with this being handled that she leaves to check on other patients.

This kid has had Mace worried for months now and comes in looking like he did a one-on-one with a rancor on fire and a story about slavers. Mace shaved his head for a reason, and young Knights are about 90% of that reason. Reckless idiots, all of them. Having a padawan certainly helped Vos mature ahead of many of his agemates, but even he is not exempt from the rule. Rather, Knight Eerin is the exception that proves the rule as she stares down Kenobi’s injuries like she might give him the lecture Mace is holding back. 

She doesn’t. She pulls out a hypo only for Kenobi to start shaking his head at the last second, not having seen her bringing it toward him. The kid must be exhausted if he’s this unaware of what’s going on around him. If Ti has her way, it won’t stay that way for long but Mace can at least acknowledge there’s something about it that reminds Mace, in a twisted way, of when Kenobi was still in the crèche and could be just as clueless of his surroundings. 

“No, Bant, I don’t need painkillers! I’m fine!”

That makes Bant more frustrated. “If you think you don’t need it, I need to know because you _could have nerve damage, you fool!”_

“I definitely have nerve damage, I have serious burns!” Kenobi says. “That’s not the point, though.”

Mace thinks he sees what’s going on here. “Knight Eerin, if he doesn’t want painkillers, he is allowed to decline them.”

Kenobi doesn’t want to lose awareness. Not an uncommon opinion or request, after something like this with all the emotional upheavals it entails. He doesn’t want the side effects of the painkillers, and Mace is not about to force him into it. Definitely not the first time Knight Eerin has seen it, but this is her dear friend, not just any other patient.

“Do you have some NSAIDs, Knight Eerin?”

It won’t do much, but it will be something. The edge, if that. Bant sighs and nods, pulling some out from one of the room’s many cupboards and giving the bottle of them to Kenobi. “Take two, every six hours. I’ll have something stronger ready so you can sleep through the night with minimal pain.”

That takes care of the altercation, and Mace allows himself to fade into the background again, to listen to the conversation as it continues. Vos laughs at whatever face Mace is pulling. Likely somewhere between _Force give me strength_ and _Yes, Senator I truly value and respect your opinion, absolutely_.

Both looks were named by Depa but he knows she isn’t exactly _wrong_. He would rather call the latter the “Young Knight” look, though, because that is where it got made and perfected. That Senators are equivalently stressful is only happy coincidence.

“You didn’t wake up to him on your couch.”

“He knows better.” Mace knows Vos follows what he's saying. That Kenobi knows better than to delay medical, he knows better than to crash on someone's couch with no warning, he knows better than to do any number of things. That isn't the issue. The issue is that slightly lost, slightly clouded look in his eyes when Bant is quiet for just long enough that he can check out again. She's caught on, if her keeping conversation going is any indicator. 

Kenobi has always had trouble staying still and focused. He reigned it in as he got older, and he knows there is a mind healer that has spoken and worked with him on managing the issue, but that didn’t suddenly erase his teenage years. When he got bored, he dug for new things to read and learn. When that lost his focus, he turned it towards learning what he could about the people around him. 

Mace had been skeptical at first, but…

Kenobi needs direction. Mundi had raised the idea, but Mace has yet to call Ti and consult with her. Mundi had ceded his position to her nearly five years ago, for all he stayed active in recruiting and managing the program from the side; Ti would need to grant final approval.

“So, care to rehash for the class what you just told Bant and me?”

“The class? You hit your head again, Quinlan?” Obi-Wan scoffs, not looking toward them while he glowers at the next healing implement being brought toward him. Never been a fan of hypos, and Mace can sympathize there. His brief summary of events is enough for Mace to not need more of the picture. Accidental adoption is definitely a new one for Mace, though he's sure it's somewhere in either the lost records from the Sith Wars or in the Archives buried in their history. He'll have to ask Jocasta. 

Mace doesn’t even bother biting a retort back this time. “When Qui-Gon took you as his padawan it was the hope of the entire Council that he wouldn’t spread his troublemaking to you.”

“He didn’t. His troublemaking would have driven Ruusaan to shooting at us. Probably. I get the impression they’re a bit too much alike in some areas and too different in others. Would have been a disaster.” Obi-Wan huffs a bit of a chuckle.

“Somehow, I don’t find that very reassuring.”

Let it never be said Mace doesn’t _have_ a sense of humor. It’s just reserved for the kind of idiocy that seems to only be met by the kinds of hare-brained shenanigans younger Knights come up with (and maybe it’s just the nostalgia, when he considers it further) and dryer than Tatooine. If that means it gets missed most of the time, then he’s fine with that.

Obi-Wan doesn’t miss much, not usually, but Mace gives him a pass this time. He watches the kid try to push Bant’s hands aside and get away. “Apologies, Master Windu.”

“Make it up to the Council by staying on top of your appointments, Kenobi.”

Bant has bacta on the torso burn and is being delicate around the neck burn.

Kenobi’s hands start twitching. His eyes lose a little bit of focus. 

“Ah, kark.”

“Language, Knight…”

Mace doesn’t finish the reprimand when the pain crosses Kenobi’s face and he uses the Force to, as gently as he can in the moment though Mace still has to soften the near collision with the wall, push Bant away as the twitches become worse. A seizure, as far as Mace can tell. He would have hit Bant, had he not pushed her away, with how close she had been standing. He still would have done some level of harm to her, possibly more than just hitting her, with the lack of control he had demonstrated. 

Mace is pretty sure he can be forgiven for that, given the circumstances.

“What do I give him?” Vos has pushed his way towards Kenobi and is trying, with one hand, to keep his head from hitting anything too hard and with the other to reach for something to help. 

Bant nudges Quinlan out of the way with a different hypo – an anticonvulsant – in her hand. “Stay out of the way, Quinlan. We knew this might happen. It can be side-effect of electrocution.”

In the minutes that it takes Kenobi to come back to himself, Mace has gathered the barest details from Quinlan and Bant and considers letting the Council report slide entirely. It’s not unheard of; the opposite, really, given the number of Jedi who come back with serious injuries. Instead of standing and presenting, they’re asked to file their normal written report and to focus on their recovery. If the Council has questions, they'll have someone schedule a one-on-one meeting with the Knight. Mace suggests as much, knowing and expecting the given response.

“You thinking he’s staying in the Halls is the funniest heap of druck I’ve heard all year. He’ll be bored out of his mind in two days and barely keeping himself from trying to sign out.” Quinlan shakes his head. “If she lets him out early, though, he can crash at mine and Ani and I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Another not uncommon practice, the injured staying with friends in the Temple during their recovery. The benefits for mental health had been seen time and again, as had a general increase in proper management of both their appointments and their injuries. Extra hands to help when movement was constricted or when something needed to be applied/changed/otherwise done as part of treatment lead to better long-term outcomes.

Mace considers it. It would give him time, assuming Master Ti declines what is quickly becoming his first plan of action, to find something to assign Kenobi to, some kind of purpose to give him.

“You think that will work?”

“I think he’ll know he’s dodged a blaster bolt and I’ll get free help with Ani out of it.”

There are other ways to handle it, besides Kenobi sleeping in a friend’s apartment (though Mace will have to order a temporary field cot delivered to the apartment in the meantime, so that Kenobi doesn’t aggravate anything sleeping on a cramped couch), but as a temporary measure it will do.

Mace makes for Master Ti’s office. If he’s right, she won’t turn him down and they can keep everything quiet as is befitting the situation. It wasn’t the original plan for Kenobi upon him attaining Knighthood, but nothing with Kenobi has ever gone to plan. Not when Yoda meddled when he was an Initiate, not during his Padawan years… it almost makes a depressing amount of sense that things don’t go to plan now, in his Knighthood.

Ti’s office is a room with hard floors and walls in earth tones, without the otherwise standard meditation pillows and soft carpets seen in many rooms of the Temple. Shaak Ti is a believer in separating her work from other aspects of her life; while not entirely traditional for a Jedi, Mace can understand the appeal. The entire room is set up for one thing, and it makes the meeting feel far less like an informal social call with all the niceties and dancing that entails.

“You either have a mission you know I will turn down, or you have intel.”

Mace doesn’t like being predictable, but he will admit it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to talk a Shadow into a mission they didn’t want by going in person instead of calling them in front of the entire Council.

“Neither.”

Mace is glad, then, that he isn’t predictable.

Shaak, as the Head Councilor on the Council of First Knowledge, is also on the High Council as its representative. The only Council with a member permitted across any lines, the Council of First Knowledge places a member on each of the Jedi Councils to provide their aid and insight when appropriate. They may not always be able to share their knowledge and intelligence, but they can certainly use it to inform their own decisions. While some on the High Council were prone to handing Shaak’s vote less weight based on these facts, Mace was careful not to discredit her too much.

Much like Kenobi’s infamous “bad feelings”, Shaak Ti had a long history of being right when it came to the choices she made. Most often, her careful consideration of the intelligence she had and her consultation of the Force led her to the stronger position, even if the options were not always ideal or the aforementioned strength was not always clear. 

She is intrigued by Mace’s denial. She leans forward in her seat. “A recruit, then?”

“Third time’s the charm, I guess.” Mace takes a seat across from her. “Knight Kenobi.”

“Went missing two months ago, but some reports put him on Kuat before properly disappearing. We began preparing an investigative operation when those rumors went dead. We were set to launch it at the end of the tenday.” She hums. “I take it he found his way home?”

Mace nods. “Worse for wear. He could use some serious help, Shaak.”

“The Shadows are all required to have regular meetings during training and between missions with counselors, yes, but what makes you think he’d be good at this kind of work?”

“He already had contacts across some networks, you know that.”

“Had?” Shaak doesn’t smile often, not with her teeth.

Mace has been told before, has read before, and has been aware for some time that Togruta are predators. He rarely gets the kind of reminder like this, where it’s clear Shaak is entertaining his game. More than that, that she sees the end and it pleases her. She has her suspicions because she has information: Something happened on Kuat, and Mace wants her to take on Kenobi. It shows in her face, in the smile she gives him. She could just as easily be feeling the thrill of a hunt now, as she is the thrill of the 'game'. 

He never did like playing Sabacc with her. Or Mundi. They were both too good.

“Still does, though I don’t know how they’ll feel about the Mandalorian family he’s acquired.”

Now Shaak leans back. “His training will have him on Coruscant for upwards of a year, at least.”

“That’s fine.”

“He needs to do joint missions with another Shadow when he’s cleared for duty. One of my medics,” ah, the Shadow medics. No one knew which ones they were, but the High Council (and rumor mill) knew they existed, “said he had some severe injuries. How will he meet that requirement?”

“Skywalker is already getting antsy. Vos is going insane standing still.”

“You’re thinking we send him on entry missions? Won’t they be beneath him?”

“Kenobi won’t complain, and maybe he’ll even remember that not everything has to be a fight for his life.”

“If the counselor has started getting through to him by then.” Shaak hums. “You had this thought through – did you think you were going to force my hand on this?”

“No.” Mace admits, he had contingencies. “I didn’t think you would turn it down, though.”

Shaak pulls up Kenobi’s file on a datapad and re-reads it. Undoubtedly, she’s read it before. She knows the most about the members of the Order, and new Knights are evaluated periodically throughout the year. That’s all he got out of her when he asked. He still only has a vague idea of what they look for in their recruitment.

“I thought he was promising before, but Jinn has a reputation.” She scrolls down and turns the pad toward him. “Academics were solid, as were his physical trainings.”

“He follows the rules.”

Shaak shakes her head, the smile shrinking a bit into something softer. Her focus is narrowing in on the pad in front of her. “No, he acknowledges them. I don’t think Yoda or Jinn taught him this particular skill, though. I think he learned it watching you.”

“What?”

“He acknowledges the rules, Mace.” When Mace doesn’t immediately follow, she elaborates. “He respects them, why they’re there. But have you ever thought about when he does break them?”

“I assumed Qui-Gon usually had something to do with it.”

She opens his “Reports – Missions” tab and scrolls toward the top. _Melida/Daan_.

“He disobeyed his Master here because children were dying and the Force was urging him to. Admirable, if a bit short-sighted. Not entirely unexpected, however, given his inexperience at the time. New Shadows have done worse on less, before, and they’re full-fledged Knights. He was a thirteen-year-old boy.” She scrolls down to another one, this one from when Kenobi was sixteen. “He disobeyed his Master _and_ the Order here, despite knowing he risked expulsion, because he saw the potential for peace where we had assumed we were pulling refugees.” Mace remembers that mission. Kenobi had nearly died (again), and Mace had been the deciding vote on his fate afterwards. He had sided with Shaak, seeing something in her posture that bore his respect and commanded his attention, and it saved Kenobi’s future in the Order. She goes through two more examples and Mace starts to see what she’s getting at.

She still says it for him, just in case. “He respects the rules. He knows them, too, and well. But he is not strident; he will break them if he thinks there is cause.

“In terms of disposition? Academics? Thinking on his feet? You’ve very nearly brought me a perfect candidate. Whatever happened on Kuat, we will see to it that he has space to heal, but Mace you need to understand that he will not be leaving the program unless he wishes to. Once he is in, he’s in and the Council will not be able to recall him without incredibly compelling cause.”

Every Knight has potential, that is a given. But Kenobi had notes in his file to make him a diplomat. Certainly, the Council had been banking on him following Qui-Gon’s footsteps as a crisis negotiator.

If he signs off on this, then they might have to rethink that plan. Have to find somebody else, because Kenobi’s entire job will rely on him staying away from undue attention.

That boy needs direction, or he will hurt himself trying to find it. Even if they start pushing him towards the crisis negotiator role, he needs to define himself apart from Qui-Gon. He needs someone to help him work through everything and parse out his emotions so he can release them properly, with their due acknowledgement and expression, instead of just shoving them into the Force and hoping that gets rid of the problem.

Shadows are mandated into therapy even in their training due to the nature of their work. It is one of the few areas the Council was able to mandate the Shadows; most everything else is handled internally. Kenobi will be taken care of, there. At least as much as any other Shadow. He will have direction and he will have help. Mace is willing to rework some staffing plans if it means that one more Knight gets a long and fruitful career in the Order instead of dying due to reckless decision making and lack of oversight.

Mace nods. “Understood, Master Ti.”

She marks his file and sends it off into the Recruitment inbox. “Then we have an agreement. Knight Kenobi is now one with the Shadows.”

“May the Force be with you both.”

“And may the Force follow you, Master Windu.”

A common variation between Shadows that had not caught on more broadly. The High Council had some strong opinions on it, but there was no changing the subculture that had developed amongst their covert operatives. They were hard enough to pinpoint unless someone knew one personally, much less to strictly control.

Kenobi would no longer have to report to the High Council unless the Council of First Knowledge or he himself deemed it necessary. Master Ti was responsible for his trainings and assignments now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worldbuilding: 
> 
> 1A: Obi-Wan and Medical: Building on other conversations I had in the comments and the text here, I hope it is a little clearer that Obi-Wan wasn't dodging medical, he just didn't put the proper urgency on it because he had an unreliable and inaccurate self-report of his injuries. This brings us to 1B.  
> 1B: Obi-Wan did (off-screen) get some medical assistance from Ruusaan and co. He was less aware (he was awake for a good bit of it, and lucid, but the adrenaline crash and the sudden shift in circumstance had him very mentally checked out in terms of processing what he was being told about his injuries. A good comparison would be if you've ever gone tried to get through the school day with a migraine. You're there, and you're hearing everything but it isn't processing and you really just want to curl up and sleep for a thousand years. Similar vibe here.  
> 2: Mace and headaches. I have a personal headcanon that Mace, given his position in the Order and the fact he sees shatterpoints, has chronic headaches/migraines some of which are stress triggered. Yes this line is played a little bit for comedy, but that's the reason it's there in the first place.  
> 3\. I included the stuff about young Knights because I can totally see it being something the Order has dealt with and has protocols for. Think about yourself in college or people you know in college - everyone is trying to figure themselves out and a lot of people take dumb risks trying. While I think the training and teaching from the Order would do a lot in terms of turning young adults away from the more reckless life choices (i.e. fewer teen pregnancies, some level of avoidance of drugs/excess alcohol, etc) I could still see it leading to other types of recklessness - burnout, taking the riskier choice on a mission because there isn't someone telling you not to, etc.  
> 4\. I love Bant and she is absolutely level-headed in this, but not only does she specialize and focus on the medical as opposed to the mental health side of things (this is re: the painkillers conversation) this is also her friend. She knows there is a level of conflict of interest there, but she's still going to handle the initial treatment and she still wants to do whatever she can to lessen his pain. Like I said in text, it's her focus on the physical pain she knows he's feeling that keeps her from thinking, initially, about the fact that the side effects may be undesirable after what Obi-Wan's been through.  
> 5\. Re: Ruusaan and Qui-Gon as characters. I didn't intend them to be foils of each other per say, I'm going more for complimentary. Neither of them are perfect guardians, but they fail in different ways. They're both very troubled people from somewhat similar points of trauma and who have unhealthy coping mechanisms. If they met, they would probably recognize some of the similarities, but there would be at least some level of clashing between them.  
> 6\. I don't know if you can have seizures after the fact with electrocution but I'm playing fast and loose with medical science in a galaxy far, far away so just. Please remember I'm not a med student. I'm a poli sci student intending to do law school when I'm done. I did some research and worked with what I found online.  
> 7\. Would Obi-Wan stay in the Halls if told to? Yes. If that's what he's told he needs, he'll do it. Would he like it? Hell no. He won't make life hard for the medics, but he still will struggle with staying so still for so long.  
> 8\. I'm down to 1100 characters in this box, so I might make a separate whole posting for just my worldbuilding on the Shadows, but thinking about the operational details and whatnot of intelligence agencies _especially_ in this kind of context of advanced technology and the kinds of issues they run into is my jam so there is so much to come in Shadow worldbuilding. An important note is that this is all self-sourced based on classes and research on my own time. I did not look for or use any information on the Jedi Shadows out of canon for this story excepting some things I've seen enough times across fanon to make an educated guess on (i.e. Shaak Ti being in charge of the program at some point). Given their operations, though, it would make sense for them to have quite a significant amount of autonomy and independence within the Order. I can elaborate on my reasoning upon request.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's trying. 
> 
> Year: late 32 BBY 
> 
> Meant to post this earlier; lost a few more hours than intended playing Assassin's Creed, but I may be developing some lore and plot stuff for an Assassin's Creed/Star Wars fusion if anyone is interested in that. It won't come out for a while, probably after this is done or when this is closer to done, but I'm working on the lore and stuff alongside this.

Qui-Gon asks to see Reshi, his Temple therapist, early after hearing about Obi-Wan’s return. He lasts three days on his own impulse control, but rumors burn their way through the Temple in mere hours only to grow with time. With time, Qui-Gon can feel a pressure in his chest – he wants to see Obi-Wan to ask what he was thinking, to ask him what happened, how this happened. He wants to fret and talk to him, but he has stayed his impulses. He knows better than to go in without thought, and has been reminded of that by Reshi. The longer he goes, though, the harder it is not to find Obi-Wan and make sure he is _safe_. _Whole, hale, and healthy like he should have been after what was supposed to be a simple research mission._

The training bond they had is fast withering. It is… Most bonds take a year or more to wither, new Knights seeking out their old masters for questions and guidance, but Obi-Wan… He takes a breath. Obi-Wan very well may have been Qui-Gon's final Padawan. Faced with the fast pace at which he may be losing him, losing the friendship that could have existed following his Knighting, Qui-Gon feels unmoored. 

Their bond withers like a plant in a drought. They are both at fault, and they have growing distance from when the bond was reinforced by contact and co-working to help maintain it, and Qui-Gon has to face that. Face that he could have taken decisive actions when he felt and saw that distance start to grow over time and he did not. There are consequences for his actions, and just so he must also accept the consequences for his inaction. He cannot, must not, react to the feeling of losing his apprentice as he wants to. He would only push him away. 

_Responding and reacting are cut from the same cloth, but they are not the same thing, Qui-Gon._ Those had been her words. _But one takes time, the other can do serious damage. In most situations, outside of missions, very few things get worse by waiting a bit before saying or doing anything._

And so, he takes another breath. His reaction was to blame Obi-Wan, to blame his insolence and his indolence. To say that his Padawan had acted poorly, had acted without regard for the Code or his mission mandate or the orders he had been given. And… that was what he had done in the Halls. He had reacted and it had taken away his opportunity to respond. Pain could only shoulder so much of the blame for his actions; he had known what would hurt and he had taken the easy way out. In doing so, he had pushed his padawan away. He had acted against the mandates of the Code and the compassion he was always telling Obi-Wan they were supposed to feel for others. 

“It will take practice, Qui-Gon. That’s why I advised against talking to Knight Kenobi right away.”

She always calls him Knight Kenobi. Even when Qui-Gon calls him Obi-Wan, or his former Padawan, she says Knight Kenobi and it reminds Qui-Gon that one more time his Padawan is getting further away from him, going where he is sure he cannot reach.

“I don’t know when he’ll leave the planet next – and what if the next mission kills him?”

Qui-Gon had ducked into the Halls of Healing shortly before this appointment when he thought he had sensed Obi-Wan there. Vokara’s glare had not been needed. He was not there to stir the pot, only to see his padawan. What he saw, though, had hurt. He had not been there to look after Obi-Wan, and now he was seeing the man grown from the boy who had stayed behind so long ago to help children fight, even from the man that he had tried to advance to Knighthood to take Anakin as his next padawan. It seemed, even with everything he learned, he still tried to save everyone.

“And what if it doesn’t, but the time away lets both of you heal?” Reshi is sitting back in her chair entirely too calm and collected as she always is and it frazzles his nerves in a way he never wants to admit, but he is sure she knows anyway. “You have a lot of trauma from what happened with Xanatos – what Yoda was thinking, pushing you to take a padawan so soon, I will never be able to guess, but you have to let yourself heal. You should have let yourself heal, earlier. Regardless, it takes time.”

“I don’t want to _lose_ time.” Qui-Gon hates that he is so honest here. So raw about how he feels here. He knows, in some respects, that there are subtle pushes in the Force in this area of the Temple. If he wants to obscure or hide something, he is more than able – even the younger padawans and older Initiates could – but it reduces the urge to hide things, making it far easier to be entirely honest.

That she has an office filled with soft-scented plants and warm, pale colors calm him – he had read up on some non-Force psychological tricks years ago, after his first session with her, when it felt like he had bared too much of his soul to this woman in front of him – does even more to prompt admissions from him.

He hates it as much as he loves it. He feels lighter after, and freer from the things he knows haunt his footsteps, but he just wants this to all be _done_ and _over_ and no longer a part of his life.

Still, when he had seen what happened to Obi-Wan, not just imagined based on rumor, Reshi had been his first call. He had not attempted to talk to Obi-Wan then, had not trusted himself to.

“What was your goal in seeing Knight Kenobi?”

Qui-Gon bites his tongue. What had been his goal?

“I wanted…”

She raises a brow. “It is alright if you didn’t have one – we don’t always understand our own motivations.”

“You’ve said I should go into things with a clear goal.”

“I’m more worried that you went into that room with the attitude of an overbearing teacher or parent, ready to fret. Knight Kenobi is his own man, and now he is a Knight entitled to a life entirely separate from you – do you think you would have remembered that if you talked then?” She holds his attention, his full and undivided and unmarred attention, because she is cutting into something in Qui-Gon that he had not wanted to admit to himself. Even in silence, when his tongue is held to her part of the conversation, he finds she exposes him to pieces of his mind he had always thought best left untended.

Some gardens are meticulously kept and all the more beautiful for it. But sometimes the wild flora needs to be permitted to grow, to foster the natural ecosystem, and to flourish. He had thought ignoring sections of his mind and trauma would allow it to heal on its own, to tend its own needs.

He was wrong. Even when he had spoken to Reshi here and there throughout Obi-Wan's apprenticeship, he could now see that he should have dealt with some things early, done more to make sure he was making decisions from as sound a mind as possible. 

“I was prepared for that, I will admit.” He pauses and sighs. “I wanted to talk, but I also knew I wanted to – I don’t know that I wanted to be upset with him, but I did want to ask him what he had been thinking. If it was worth it, given what he suffered. And I know enough to know that I would have likely become rather aggressive with him in handling it.”

“You didn’t. I’m proud of you for putting pause on your actions to talk about it.” Reshi does not take notes on her datapad until the end of the session. Her entire focus is on their conversation and on him. “How do you feel about having waited?”

Qui-Gon wrestles with that. He feels…

His chest feels tight, considering it. He feels like a failure, knowing he now has two padawans living in the Temple near him and it seems neither of whom want much, if anything, to do with him. He has lost trust from two people he was supposed to be a guide, a mentor for.

He doesn’t know what the right answer here is. Perhaps that, more than any of the subtle nudges in the Force or the plants or the soft colors, is what makes him so honest here. He never knows the right answer, so the only one he can ever give is the true, honest one.

“I feel like for all I have learned and done as a Jedi, I have failed in one of the most important ways. We are supposed to nurture the next generation, and three times I’ve failed.”

“You did not fail with Feemor. He is a well-respected Jedi Knight, and a relief-specialty Ranger who is loved across the galaxy for the work he does.

“Kenobi is still new, he is finding his way. If the rumors going around about this last mission are true, he followed what he thought was right. Perhaps it is not, in the strictest of interpretations, our way as Jedi, but it is still honorable. And many in our Order would say he _did_ follow the Code in acting as he did.

"It may not be that he is out of reach forever, for you. He likely needs space, though, given he is finally creating his individual identity.”

“And if Obi-Wan decides to leave the Order one day? If he decides that this isn’t enough for him, that my teachings weren’t enough?” He never thought he would admit this, one of his insecurities. Obi-Wan had done so before, on Melida/Daan, and Qui-Gon had a significant role in pushing him out. In making him think he had nowhere to turn if he wanted to help others. He knows, now, that if Obi-Wan ever did make that decision he would hold himself, at least in part, responsible. 

“If Knight Kenobi were to decide to leave the Order, you would have to make a very important decision, Qui-Gon: would you hold it against him, or would you still make yourself available to him as a source of guidance and maintain contact?

“Non-Jedi parents talk about it this way,” she has done this before, offered him wisdom from outside of the Order in a way that makes it seem more normal, “Sometimes, your child decides to do something you do not approve of. But if you cut them off, you never see their successes, and more importantly you teach them to hide their failures and never ask for help. If you keep the door open and the light on, you will be telling Kenobi it is _okay_ if he fails. That he can still come to you for support.”

Qui-Gon has told him that if he leaves, he can never come back before. Melida/Daan, when he was a mere thirteen. He mumbles about it to Reshi, who hides her reaction so well.

He still sees the way her shoulders tighten and her eyes harden. It’s almost perfect. Not _quite_ perfect. She had told him, very bluntly (and nearly requested he be reassigned due to her reaction, citing lack of professionalism in their interaction on her part before Qui-Gon asked that he remained assigned to her. The honesty and bluntness had been refreshing as he had to wrestle with what he had done in the aftermath) what she thought of his actions from Melida/Daan. “There are consequences to our actions, Knight Jinn, even seven years later. I guess your real question, now, will be if you’ve done enough throughout his apprenticeship to prove to him that you were wrong then, that you’re open to whatever path the Force takes him on now.”

And when Qui-Gon walks back to his apartment after the session he is left with nothing but a wonder at what she had said. It is not the wonder of someone taking in a great beauty or seeing history standing before them in the monuments of old planets. Instead, he feels himself burning and chafing against it in equal part to the amount of truth it holds. He does not want to sever things so harshly with his last padawan.

The comparison to a father and his child is fitting – he knows it is. But if he was a father, then what kind of father has he been to have three children so different in temperament and so separate from him in the end of their apprenticeships? One of them _dead._ What parent outlives their child? 

He sets his lightsaber on the counter. The weapon is his life, but he lives alone. There is no one to entrust the weapon to, no one to have his back on the next mission.

He has a meeting with Mace tonight. A mission, he distantly hopes even if he's bound to Coruscant for quite a bit longer, a distraction from everything swirling around him. He will be meeting him in the refectory, and for the first time in nearly eight years Qui-Gon is hoping Obi-Wan is not there. Eight years prior, it had been because the boy had been an annoyance trying to get his attention. Now, he doesn’t know what to say or do to convince him he does, in fact, care, that he wants to make amends and make things better. 

Reshi had said he has to hope that he did enough in seven years to undo the damage of Melida/Daan.

Qui-Gon is not so sure that it is worth hoping at all.

Watering the plants is a rote task as he makes his way around the apartment. He has… He has no feeling to it. What is normally a way to commune with the living Force is just. Happenstance. A habit.

By the time he has finished, he still has hours before his meeting and even a trip to the Archives does not truly hold his attention. Jocasta stops to talk to him, the distraction she provides is at least _something_ in this time and moment, something to pull at his focus.

“Things change, Qui-Gon. Just admit it, you’re getting _old_.” She says the word with the air of a joke, with a smile and the barest edge of a laugh as he starts to react in frustration.

Respond, he reminds himself, do not react.

Jocasta had been... well. She had been nearing his age now when he had taken on Feemor. And now she was even older, and wiser than he would likely ever be, and most in the Order held her in high regard.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Old. Aged. Decrepit. Just face it, you don’t know what to do because the kid operates in an entirely different galaxy than you do.” She smiles and sits behind him. She’s not being unkind in the slightest, and for the first time in hours the slinking feeling of being watched, of being judged for how things had gone is dissipating. “It is quite alright to feel out of touch.”

Out of touch… Maybe that was part of the problem. He never tried to be _in touch_ with Obi-Wan’s interests. He had assumed…

Well. He had assumed that, given his age, they would largely be passing fancies. It was acknowledged that padawans went through many phases as they started teasing out their own identity within the confines of the Order ans while still under the eyes of their Masters. He assumed the different hobbies – the history, the Mando’a (followed by Ryl, followed by Huttese, followed by other languages he picked up with ease), the poetry, and so on – would all fade with time. The ground he had assumed would be so steady, the foundation he had thought he had lain, was all the foundation of battle partners, of mission assignments. Temporary co-workers who will eventually go their own ways. 

He sighed as he considered his next move.

“Jocasta, were there books Obi-Wan used to read again and again?”

Jocasta smiles at him, wicked and wonderful woman that she is, and Qui-Gon realizes that perhaps she had been setting him up all along. “Come with me, Master Jinn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Narrative Notes:  
> 1\. This is set a few days after Obi-Wan's initial arrival back to the Temple, as stated. We are still in 32 BBY, but close to 31 BBY (I'm going to start including the years I've listed in my notes, since from here there will be times where chapters have significantly longer gaps of time between them.)  
> 2\. I made the narrative choice, based on what can be gleaned from EU and canon, to have Qui-Gon as the kind of person who knows he needs therapy but thinks he shouldn't, and lets that get in the way of him seeking help. He isn't saying that he doesn't need help, he is just very stubborn.  
> 3\. Qui-Gon, in the analogy of a parent, knew something was getting between him and his "son", but because he was not sure how to address it he chose not to. I attempted to write it as a neutral, in some sense, decisions; he did not want to make things worse even though he knew that he was not making things better. He was not a bad person for doing so, but he was not a good mentor/role-model/parent for choosing to try and "let things sort themselves out" instead of seeking outside guidance on how to handle it. People make these kinds of inaction decisions all the time, and I really didn't want this to be a bash fic. He did lash out at Obi-Wan before the story, but he is human. That does not mean he was, following the Melida/Daan incident which exists in the "canon" of this story, an overall bad Master that harmed Obi-Wan _intentionally or knowingly_. You can still hurt people without meaning to or without doing something concrete, though, and that is what I was trying to show here.  
> 4\. Qui-Gon does not know about Obi-Wan being inducted into the Shadows. As of right now, it hasn't officially happened yet. It's talked about in Wednesday's chapter, a bit, but to make it more clear, there is still preparatory and administrative work Shaak Ti has to do before reaching out to him properly about joining the Shadows.  
> 5\. Reshi isn't doing this intentionally; Qui-Gon is already feeling scattered, her calm just agitates it further because it's the opposite of what he's experiencing right now. Remember, these are somewhat unreliable narrators.  
> 6\. Reshi has been Qui-Gon's therapist for a long time; the mental health system of the Jedi in this operates on the idea that consistency is helpful so typically people have a therapist they've worked with before and that they continue to work with when needed. They can request someone new, but most of them have worked with a specific individual for several years. That means Reshi has a lot more background knowledge than I'm explicitly including and she is working off of knowledge of what happened in the past. When Qui-Gon quotes stuff she's told and taught him, it might be years old but it is still something he learned from her.  
> 7\. I've seen references to Jedi Rangers, and I don't know much of the Lore but I liked the concept so I ran with it and added the idea that some of them specialize in finding/delivering humanitarian aid to far out places.  
> 8\. I don't know if this counts as Spoilers, but just in case I didn't make it fairly clear throughout the earlier chapters, Obi-Wan is not leaving the Order in this fic. Qui-Gon's worries are purely his own insecurities talking.  
> 9\. The thing about watering the plants being habit is a little bit of reference to a theological thing from the real world. There's an idea in Judaism, my religion, that even if you don't see the meaning behind or in doing something, doing it/treating it as routine allows us to either see the meaning with time or experience it over time. Qui-Gon is not seeing the meaning in watering his plants, right now, but by doing it he is maintaining the habit and allowing himself to remain open to that communion with the Living Force he knows he usually experiences.  
> 10\. Jocasta Nu is fantastic and I love her dearly. There's no real narrative note here, I just wanted to share that I _love_ Jocasta Nu.  
> 11\. Is this me commenting on the natural divides that form between generations? Mayhaps.  
> 12\. Obi-Wan the nerdy polyglot returns.  
> 13\. Since I'm talking about Jocasta Nu, I might as well reference that Dooku is going to be making some appearances in this. I'll let you guys guess how and why if you're feeling up to it.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tail end of 32 BBY. Like, last few weeks.
> 
> Huzzah you get the chapter a day early because I have to work middle shift tomorrow and will be wholeass _dead_ after. Especially because if we're busy, my manager has already said she might keep me the additional 2-2.5 hrs until close. So an 8, possibly 10 hour shift if not longer. Woohoo. 
> 
> The joys of working at a grocery store during the holidays. Will admit, extra hours have been nice; I won't be able to pick up these extra shifts next semester, so I'll take what I can until the semester starts.

Shaak finds Obi-Wan in Quinlan’s apartment and smiles at the sight she sees. Yes, this will do rather nicely. They’ll have to move them to the larger apartments typically used for Shadows and their support systems, but if Obi-Wan is already comfortable with Quinlan and his new padawan, then there is absolutely a strong argument for his training.

Because the kind of opening they have been given to gather intel on the Haat Mando’ade is unprecedented. Clan Eldar has been the most active since the end of the Civil Wars. While Clan Fett had seemingly disappeared, if not died off given Mand’alor Apparent, Jango Fett, was nowhere to be seen for the last several years since Galidraan, many others had simply gone underground as far as they possibly could. The Senate’s debatably direct role in sending the Jedi to Galidraan had sent a very clear message: Get out of Republic space or stay at your own peril.

Of the clans that had remained active, Wren had stayed largely in the Mandalore sector, Vizsla was kicking around but never staying anywhere long if they could help it… That was the trend. To stay out of the way. The Outer Rim was, as always, a hot-spot for activity, but even then they were staying out of anything reportable.

Except for Clan Eldar. The clan had been spotted or claimed credit for work in various parts of the galaxy. While not enough for the Senate, or even indeed the Council of First Knowledge, to be overly worried, and certainly not enough to be on public radar outside of specific enthusiasts on Mandalorian history and culture, it did stand out. If any group had the basis for a strong claim to power under what the Jedi understood to be the guiding principles of Mandalorian culture - the Resol'Nare, though she would have to confirm that through Jocasta (and perhaps through Obi-Wan, with time) - Clan Eldar would be in such a position. 

In Quinlan’s apartment, then, is the newest member of Clan Eldar. A Jedi she has watched grow up, and a man she has reason to believe, based on reports, is reliable and steadfast in his commitments and with a heart open to all. He had come to the Jedi. He had gone to them instead of throwing himself into the fire of Mandalorian culture. Certainly, they would have to be careful; they could not ask him directly to inform on these people, not without the kinds of graces, loyalties, and opportunities that only time could provide. Until then, it would have to be gathered through more careful, indirect means. All the better, in some arguments, given the information one gives without realizing is often more correct than that which they carefully control.

Knight Kenobi is sitting next to Padawan Skywalker, on whose other side sits Quinlan, and they are both helping him through homework. It makes an image of hundreds of Shadow groups before, a not uncommon sight to one who has worked so extensively with the covert hand of the Jedi Order.

Or, rather, Obi-Wan is giving him the technical and correct answers while Quinlan is giving him the answers that have kept both men in the Order and within the Code without making them compromise their personal beliefs. It is a balancing act met with jokes and years of built-up references that leave Anakin glancing between them like they've lost their minds. Familial, is one word she could use. 

“A pleasure to see you, Knight Vos.”

“I thought I was off-roster for a year, what with Ani and all.”

Direct and unquestioning, Quinlan has always been an example to other Shadows of the job. One must be duplicitous and careful with outsiders; within, the only acceptable way to be is to be upfront.

“I’m actually here for Knight Kenobi.”

Quinlan nods to that and pulls Anakin’s homework together, while Anakin looks torn between rejoicing at getting to stop and protesting at the sudden change in plans. “Alright. Come on, Ani. Let’s go see if we can’t dig up some more stuff ‘bout this in the Archives while Master Ti and Obi-Wan talk.”

“I will need to speak with you, as well, Knight Vos, once Knight Kenobi and myself are finished.”

“Understood, Master.”

The two are quick out the door and Shaak smiles as she hears Anakin complain about the ‘boring old Archives’ and asking if they can do forms instead.

He’s an active young man – Shaak has little doubt the Rangers will take him on if he so wishes, allowing him to take all that energy and explore the galaxy looking for areas to learn and to help. She wonders if Obi-Wan has talked to Feemor – he may be able to provide insight or supplemental training to Anakin.

“You wished to speak with me, Master?”

He hides his flinch at the title so well. He has the right instincts for being a Shadow, certainly, in hiding responses he thinks won't serve him. 

“Have you thought about your future in the Order, Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan hesitates as his eyes narrow. “My future? I… I admit I had assumed I would serve at the whim of the Councils.”

Councils. Oh, what a sharp one. So many assumed their fates were held solely in the hands of the High Council, because that was their understanding from their Initiate teachings and they were so used to reporting to them in their Padawan days; few considered the roles of the others without direct dealings with them. Not in their first days - Shaak's studies had left it at an average of three years before most Knights started looking towards the other Councils in an effort to find their calling within the Order. 

“Then you know why I’m here.”

“You either wish to recruit me, you speak on behalf of someone with that wish, or I misinterpreted much of what Master Windu said to me after giving my report and am to find myself shortly expelled for unsanctioned action.”

“Neither of the latter are the case, Knight Kenobi.” Shaak gestures to the table Quinlan has left behind him and Anakin. Covered in small droid parts, there is a datapad opened to an Alderaanian history book, and Quinlan’s spare gloves, fingerless these ones, are across it. “It is the first option.”

“The most likely, as I had guessed.”

Shaak smiles. “Careful, young one. You are sharp, but do not let your mind get ahead of you. Your first focus in the training, should you accept, would be to acknowledge when your mind is guiding you and when the Force is guiding you.”

“When would I begin?”

And he is intrigued. Those interested in the position tend to last the longest.

“Soon. You are to focus on your recovery from the Alderaan-Kuat mission,” and he barely gives himself away at that. With training, he will glide through the galaxy with control, covers, and chimerical tales, but for now she can rest easy in knowing he has the raw potential for the work. “The bulk of the training will follow after.” 

Obi-Wan considers her. “So likely in the next few months.”

“Weeks, more like. You will begin the mental training within the next week to two, if you accept, and physical will start when the Healers determine you able, and will be moderated to that ability level as you continue your recovery.”

He nods. “Understood, Master Ti.”

“Any further questions?”

Kenobi is friends with a Shadow, and likely has a better understanding than most. “I am honored by your consideration, Master.”

“You will be taking the position, then?”

He considers her another moment. It was a sure thing moments ago, but there is hesitation now. She wonders at that.

Still, even that tendency to run through a scenario can be trained into a focused and quick instinct that will benefit him in the field, in future.

“I will be.” He nods. “What of my living arrangement?”

Vos had lived with Aayla and Master Tholme between missions. It was not uncommon for Shadows to live in slightly larger apartments one or two members of the Order outside of the organization, though tentatively affiliated, in order to preserve a sense of normalcy and a connection to what and who they were serving.

When the night got darkest, the lights one’s family and friend cast could be the only thing that brought them to drag themselves home.

“You will be put in a triad apartment with Knight Vos and Padawan Skywalker, assuming Knight Vos is amenable.”

Something in him relaxes at that. “And the Mandalorians?”

“Your connection to them is invaluable. We will not ask you to harm them, if it can be avoided, and we will not ask you to betray personal confidences. Unless we have reason to believe otherwise, your work as a Shadow will largely center on the underworld activities they can make you privy to, especially on Coruscant. Reporting on them will be at your discretion but do realize that we may one day have to ask. Even if we don’t want to.”

Kenobi nods. He is not attached, no. Ti would not say that. However, these people had helped pull him out of a hell all its own and that has bought them some measure of loyalty. Loyalty is a much harder currency than attachment, fickle as the latter can be. Shaak can respect that as much as she hopes he will retain his loyalty to the Order that raised and trained him.

His loyalties are not divided now. That challenge doesn't exist in his mind yet. But time and vicinity have a way of reproducing loyalty and she wonders at the future and its myriad possibilities.

No use for it, though. She has a recruit in front of her, and she suspects he will manage well, at least for a while.

“Your tenure with us will be a mutually discretionary arrangement, much like we have with Knight Vos.”

Many of their members are on these kinds of agreements, though some have specific terms and lengths decided on a case-by-case basis.

“And that means?”

“We may see distressing patterns of behavior, or you may come off of a particularly long or grueling mission after which we will require you take a sabbatical or other break for your own recovery. Otherwise, when you leave is largely up to you.” She pulls out a datapad with the training program, necessary amendments already made and listed. “Here is your training schedule.”

Meditation for the first few weeks, specifically ones meant to get him comfortable operating in the Gray of the Force, as opposed to strictly in the Light, giving him time to focus on his healing and his therapy. Light physical training while he got back in shape, combined with alternative weapons training; Shaak remembers a rifle that made its way back with Kenobi from Melida/Daan. Another Shadow had taught him, at fourteen, where and how to hide it that others would not find it if he was looking to keep it private. A shooting range that was “usually empty” but was in fact one primarily used by Shadows and other undercover operatives.

It was an old model, kept intact by meticulous repairs over the years. There were colored pieces of string, and even some beads on the thing, but what always struck Shaak was the accuracy with which Kenobi could shoot it. She had watched him, on late nights when an alert hit her datapad that someone was using the shooting range, as he worked through some sort of emotional baggage on the range. His accuracy was fairly good, and he folded around the weapon with the kind of ease that suggested long practice hours. If he has nightmares, which Shaak would bet on, he has likely been using a few hours of late-night shooting as a substitute for other forms of moving meditation in the aftermath. By far not the worst coping mechanism she had seen, and likely one that they could redirect or reschedule for him in training.

Certainly, the Jedi provide a passing familiarity with other weapons in training. Nothing compared to formal training, but enough practice to be able to _use_ a blaster in a pinch, even if not very well. While Shaak did not know for certain, there was every possibility Kenobi had some training or some practice with the Mandalorians while he was gone.

The training would step up on his medical schedule, and as such the rest of his outline is vague. Something Kenobi notices immediately. “How long does the training usually last?”

“Six months is average, for the basics. The schedule is designed to be flexible, to meet the individual where they are; you are hardly the first Knight inducted into our ranks following strenuous missions and detrimental injury. It continues between missions and during your first several, for which you have an assigned partner.”

“A partner?”

Shaak nods. Not an uncommon question or concern from recruits. “Not like a Master and Padawan partnership, rather a partnership of equals. One with more experience from which to draw, one with new perspective.”

Their job relies on adaptability. The only place for hierarchy is within the Temple or on the most sensitive of operations, during which Jedi Masters involved in or affiliated with the program will accompany and supervise. Otherwise, the power struggles that people were prone to got in the way.

Obi-Wan considers the tablet further. “My recovery is slated to take at least three months, if not longer for some of the more extreme injuries.”

And the starvation, even if he doesn’t mention it. She sees the meal plan put on the conservator, made to look normal with the inclusion of one for Anakin and one, admittedly less complete, for Quinlan. No doubt, Quinlan had done it from his own experiences with longer recoveries; implementing the routine across the board would feel less like isolation, would be less likely to be internalized in the way that all sentients might, as weakness.

“And as such, I will be coordinating directly with the Halls on your training courses. I’m sure, if you’re more comfortable, that Knight Vos would be willing as well.”

Obi-Wan fidgets with his hands. A tell, but one that can be reworked, redirected. While there are always some habits that need trained out of recruits, the tells are one of the ones they would rather retrain than train out.

They do not need machines, they need thinking, feeling individuals.

“Knight Kenobi, if it helps, we can take this one day at a time.” Shaak waves a hand toward their surroundings. “You are joining a long-standing part of the Jedi Order, and one more than glad to welcome you into its embrace.

“You are also healing and have experienced a heavy trauma. No one will think any less of you if you ask to slow things down.”

Obi-Wan does not relax, per say. No, he is likely still stretched a tad thin, mentally, for anything this new to feel comfortable. Instead he nods, and settles. “Alright. One day at a time.”

“Excellent. Do you need us to set up your appointment with a mind healer?” Better to ask than to assume he will manage it on his own.

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “Thank you. I have a healer already, and I will be seeing him soon.”

“I will be seeing you later, then, Knight Kenobi.”

“Ah, Master.” He looks a little cheeky, a little apologetic. Charming, this one. It will serve him well in the field. “You were going to speak to Quinlan, correct?”

“Yes. Though you are not needed for that conversation.”

He laughs. “No, I figured as much. However, Quinlan will need someone to keep an eye on Anakin; would you like me to accompany you to the Archives, then, as we will both be going the same direction?”

Shaak smiles. “I would appreciate your company, Knight Kenobi.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:   
> 1\. Shaak's position on the Clan Eldar thing: Obi-Wan is known to be fairly loyal; on top of that, this is intelligence work. She has to be careful, and she knows that there is going to be a lot more that she gets through conversations Obi-Wan has with her or with others that will flesh out her understanding of Clan Eldar without having to ask him to compromise principles. I'm on the fence if it's going to happen later, given I could work it in to a planned plot point, but I don't know that I want to introduce that thread (and the requisite consequences) into what is already becoming a pretty complex to write story line.   
> 2\. I'm going to get into this more in later chapters, but given the Shadows do some of the most intense work - literally dealing with dark side artifacts and planets and what not - they need strong support. So, I have written it that they often stay with friends and as such there are slightly larger Jedi "apartments" wherein you could have three or four people living together to make sure there is a solid support network that is extremely accessible. These support systems, due to the need for operational security, would be based on people who have some level of affiliation with the Shadows without being Shadows themselves. Support personnel, former members, etc.   
> 3\. Obi-Wan is still involved in Anakin's life. Just more like a brother and therefore eliminating some of the "You're like a father to me"/"You are/were my brother" miscommunications from canon.   
> 4\. For those who asked about Feemor... He wont' make his actual appearance until later (somewhere around 27 BBY, if you're wondering...) but he is Going To.   
> 5\. The Alderaanian history book is actually Obi-Wan's reading, if that wasn't clear.  
> 6\. Intelligence work often has some high turnover rates because of how intense it can be.   
> 7\. I'm going to harp on this again: Shaak is not going to ask him to act against his personal conscience if she can avoid it. But she is a realist, and she is going to make sure that he knows one day it might be something that his commitments to the Order and his commitments to his family may conflict and he has to be willing to navigate that.   
> 8\. My headcanon is Shadows work more in the gray because if they do get close to or actually Fall, they have the opportunity through the Gray to come back. It's a shorter jump from Dark to Gray than from Dark to Light. If they can make the first one, they're doing better, and if they can make the second - from Gray to Light - it is the best they can hope for.  
> 9\. I know we all love the "so uncivilized" remark, but given Melida/Daan happened here and canon is my sandbox the rifle here is going to happen. It's a memento and it's going to Come Back later. As for another Shadow showing him where to hide it, of all the Jedi the undercover operatives would need not just capability but _proficiency_ in multiple types of weapons. As for how this affected his training earlier, as mentioned it's an older model rifle. When he was doing training with Ruusaan and Amilr, he was naturally doing the things he needed to compensate on his usual rifle. Furthermore, he uses the shooting range as meditation, not as blaster training so mentally they aren't in the same category for him.  
> 10\. Tells: Everyone has them and it's not necessarily easy or possible to train them out even in real life so the idea is if you fidget with your hands, retrain that tell into something less noticeable instead of training it out.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, all!

Costor has worked with Obi-Wan in the past, even when Obi-Wan was reluctant. As such, his was the first call he made upon returning to the Temple. Even without the new mandates his training puts for therapy, and without knowing everything that has to do with what happened on Kuat, Costor knows the history, he knows what kinds of things happened to Obi-Wan over the years and knows where Obi-Wan has regrets and where he thinks he _should_ feel regret.

It’s comforting, then, when he’s breaking down some of his most uncomfortable assumptions and feelings about everything that happened.

“Why do you think you reacted the way you did, in the moment?”

“Because I was exhausted and it felt safe. I told you this.”

“Obi-Wan, do you feel safe here?”

In Costor’s office? Yes. He always has. Costor had listened to insecurities and issues of Obi-Wan’s for so long that some days it feels like his therapist knows him better than his closest friends.

“Of course.”

“Not here, in this room. You went through a series of very intense experiences, Obi-Wan. Have you felt safe since you got back?”

No. He wakes up some nights in a cold sweat. He has moved with Quinlan and Anakin to a wing of the Temple that is usually used by Shadows, that few people really live in anyway, but even being able to feel them right there some nights he still thinks he’s being tricked. He still has nightmares of the crèche and the bomb collars, of childhood memories being marred by a friend dropping to the ground in pain as they’re shocked from a distant source.

He still has visions, too, of a fiery world and a woman’s vicious scream, of rain marring the face of a serious, morose child asking in an ever quieter voice for help.

Costor told him to stop wearing the jacket to sleep, once. Hadn’t demanded it or ordered it, really, had suggested it. Had raised solid arguments about Obi-Wan’s connection to the Cosmic Force, to the Force in general, and that distancing himself from that was a dangerous crutch to start using.

He was a Jedi. He had a responsibility to others, yes, but foremost he had a responsibility to himself to ensure he was healthy. Running from the Force, in many ways his oldest and dearest friend if it could be called that, was far from that. The jacket was still warm on breezy days, was still worn for some sense of comfort as some of Ruusaan’s talk of armor bled through into his daily life, even in the Temple.

No longer at night. No longer all day. For a few hours, if he was going out, and hung up by the door. Build the association, build the habit that it is worn when going out of the Temple, not for around those he trusted. Costor has yet to lead him astray, and Obi-Wan has learned to value the advice even if he reacts, initially, out of fear.

Costor had known Obi-Wan since he was thirteen, and even when Obi-Wan had made it difficult to find him after Melida/Daan or had tried to weasel his way out of appointments in the earliest years of their acquaintance and work together – working off a young teenager’s understanding of strength, instead of acknowledging the importance others played in his life and well being, or the role they could play in helping him – he had never gotten angry or upset. Instead, he asked Obi-Wan what he had learned, asked him what he would do different.

There had been a few times he asked Obi-Wan if he regretted regrettable actions. Those times he had said he hadn’t that he would make the same choice again (Melida/Daan one of the foremost of those decisions), Costor had allowed him to leave early with only a question to consider: _why_.

So yes, Costor’s cozy office, with it’s dim light, dark walls, and soft chairs was a place of great comfort for Obi-Wan for all it was also the place he often experienced the kinds of emotional upheaval he understood to be common in therapy.

Costor leans forward, gesturing towards the small kitchenette he has in the office. “Would you like some tea, Obi-Wan?”

It’s a non-sequitur if Obi-Wan has ever heard one, but he loves Costor for it, loves him for understanding that Obi-Wan knows the answer, but has to take a moment to get it out of his throat, into his mouth, and then speak it into the world around him. He knows that for Obi-Wan it is when emotions and ideas are spoken and given form in the air that they become real as surely as he also knows Obi-Wan clings to them, often. Holds them inside to prevent them from hurting himself or others.

It is a self-destructive habit, and one he has worked on for years. It is also one that rears its ugliest and ungainliest of attributes at the most inopportune times.

“No. I don’t feel safe here.”

The kettle has just been put on, but there is safety in seeing Costor’s back that lets Obi-Wan speak.

“Do you want to examine why, talk about it, or move on?”

Obi-Wan considers that. “I… I don’t know.” He pauses a moment. “What do you think would help?”

“I think if we examine why, it might exacerbate the issue temporarily, but if we talk about it then we might be able to work through it. I understand that you like knowing the why, though, and that it may be beneficial in the long run to do the examination and then to talk about it in our next meeting. You may have more intense fear for a few days, but you’ve gone that route with those consequences before, and to great benefit.”

So the decision, as always, is still up to Obi-Wan, up to what he thinks he can handle today.

And after a night where three times he awoke from nightmares, where one of them had him tossing and turning until he made his way down to the shooting range, remembering for the first time in years what his old rifle from the war felt like in his hands and how to make it hit target five of six times, even though the sights were off by a bit and it tended to shoot off-left… He had set it aside around seventeen. Had not forgotten it existed – no, he still maintained it. Still shot it periodically. But the shooting lessons with Ruusaan and Amilr and the events on Kuat pushed something in him to work with the old rifle again.

After a night where his mind has had enough fun torturing him, he knows he does not have the mental or emotional energy to deal with the fallout of examining why. Not now.

“Can we just talk about it?”

Costor smiles, setting the tea down. Obi-Wan has pulled his knees to his chest, but his hands cup the mug gently. The warmth feels nice. He’s been putting on weight in the last several weeks since his return, but his hands always feel so cold, his fingers sometimes feel too stiff to move until he’s gotten the blood moving again.

“You aren’t feeling safe. That’s the first part – acknowledging and naming the problem.” Costor leans in his own chair. He’s not unfamiliar with Obi-Wan preferring to curl in on himself, particularly in this space. Sometimes, on days when it’s a looser sort of curl, one from comfort and feeling like he’s making progress, he could almost imagine he’s falling asleep in the living room of the apartment, Quinlan working on his own work and Anakin chattering about his latest side project.

Today, though, curling in on himself like this is merely winding himself around whatever pillars of his own resolve are still standing, as dread pools in his stomach and he faces the problems he has been working towards for nearly four weeks.

He has been home for just shy of a month. Home in the Temple, where some of his happiest memories were made and where the people he holds dearest call home.

He should feel safe, he doesn’t. He had a lot to unpack in the first several sessions – Costor had suggested meeting twice a week at the start, but now they’re meeting three times until Obi-Wan feels like he’s somewhat back to where he was before – but now he is here. One of the major issues.

“I know I’m safe.”

Costor nods. Doesn’t push him to say more, but gives him a moment in case he wants to. “I know I should feel safe, that I am safe. But every time I hear someone shout, I smell blood and I hear metal.”

“Hear metal?”

“The shipyards – metal was always hitting things. Durasteel, ship-grade durasteel, makes a really strange sound when it drops, or when something hits it but it’s not part of anything yet. It’s got this ring, an echo almost, and it stays in your head for hours. Force, sometimes I can hear it when I’m trying to sleep.”

“So you hear the durasteel, and you smell blood.”

Obi-Wan nods.

“Prompted by shouting.”

He nods again. “I try to do that centering thing you taught me when I was younger. Focusing on things I hear just makes the metal louder, and the smells just make the blood stronger.”

“Then let’s try something else. Sometimes, when one tool stops working, we need to switch it out, whether temporary or not.”

Obi-Wan and he talk about it, they even implement a plan. Obi-Wan is supposed to address feelings of impending anxiety by slowly and purposefully relaxing individual muscles. He still feels unmoored. He wants something to drink – not something alcoholic, but something strong still. A strong tea or a heavy mug of cocoa. Something that will sit in his chest a bit and help him feel like there is something holding him in place. The spiced cocoa Ruusaan had given him comes to the forefront of his mind as he considers it. 

So he goes to the refectory. He goes to the refectory and he tries not to flinch at sudden noises, tries not to look around or worry at the burns on his neck in anticipation of a pain worse than touching the burn.

His tremors, in the last month, have gone down. Significantly so, and he is glad for it. He doesn’t know how he would have been, emotionally, if he was still getting so many of them and the requisite frustration.

He’s had three more seizures, since returning. Bant says they may fade with time, but they might take longer, too. They’re working on the neurological damage, and they’re working on repairing as much as they can. Bant has, privately, told him that Vokara thinks their treatment plan will give him almost full, if not full, functionality. Electricity is no laughing matter, and he’s lucky as is. He will settle for most, and be glad if he gets all. 

Still. The tremors happen, periodically, as they do now. The burns are healing, but they still ache a low and hot ache when touched. He still hurts all over, though he knows that will take its own sort of time to fade.

His comm pings with a text.

_Amil: Kaval and I found a ratfucked joint in the lower levels. Want to visit?_

He types out a response, a question, and now his mind starts mulling it. It’s a distraction. Even as his own hand starts twisting of its own volition he isn’t focusing on it, and that in and of itself is progress. He isn’t spiraling, focusing solely on the movements of the –

And now he is. He takes a breath and looks down at his response. It’s hard to type out with one hand, but his other one is currently uncooperative. He deletes out a typo before sending it.

_I can’t yet – still staying close to the Temple. What about meeting up for food sometime?_

Dex’s is more of his turf than theirs. He’ll be more comfortable there, and Dex will have his back. More than that, he might be able to talk Quinlan into going with him. He…

It is not weakness to want backup. He is emotionally involved in this, invested even. And Shaak has talked to him a few times about the investment there. Even on recruitment it had been made clear he could remain invested, but he was not foolish enough to think that whatever he said about them, even tangentially or within his own home with Quinlan, would be entirely private. There would be information gleaned and reported.

He wants to be fine with that. On some level, he even is. Clan Eldar may claim better values than would be expected of a clan of bounty hunters and other criminals, but they are still Mandalorians. There is still a fraught history between the Order and the Mando’ade. He sighs. No use worrying until he hears back, anyway.

The refectory is his next stop. Something to drink, maybe something to snack on. He’s feeling hunger properly now, but he still has to be careful when and how much and what he eats in order to prevent himself getting sick and undoing any of the work he’s put into recovery.

He messages Bant, just to check.

_What can I grab from refec?_

She types back a moment before he gets his response. There’s a mildly spiced milk-tea that he absolutely intends on, and today there’s a rice and vegetable dish that is mild enough it shouldn’t upset anything.

It’s a good sign, feeling hunger and feeling the impetus to eat and drink things. He knows it is. He…

He’s worrying at the finger of his not twitching hand, and he needs that to hold his tray. The tremors are slowing a bit in the other hand, but he still can’t rely on it for the tray, can barely rely on it for the few moments it takes to move a plate and a mug.

Two hands cross on the left side of his field of vision, lightly grabbing his tray and gesturing towards one of the tables. “I’d like to help.”

He hasn’t spoken to Qui-Gon since he came back. He just… There had been no need nor any pressure in himself to do so. Costor thought it could be good, but said Obi-Wan should take time and think about why it had come up so much in his own thoughts. Think about if he wanted to talk to Qui-Gon but was worried about how, or if he genuinely did not want to talk to Qui-Gon.

He thinks, seeing him here now, that maybe it was the former.

“Thank you, Master Jinn.”

Qui-Gon doesn’t reprimand him for formality, but he doesn’t take the same formal approach. “I’m glad I was here to help, Obi-Wan. I… There were rumors about your injuries. Is your recovery going well?”

“As well as can be expected.”

He doesn’t know what he’s doing here. It’s like learning a kata from sight alone and then performing it in front of an unknown Master: too many variables, too much to process, and too much in sequence. Qui-Gon is sitting across from him, but does not have his own food.

The Force around him is the same silent hum it usually is. If he were meditating it would manifest as a plain, instead of as the series of hills or mountains of energy it does when something is about to go wrong, formations all made out of agitations.

“How has your own?”

Qui-Gon smiles a bit, but it’s a small and wan thing. “Healer Che thinks I’ll be grounded for quite a while. Every possibility exists that my mission profile will be taking a distinctive turn towards the quieter side of things in the near future.”

“You need to look after your health, Master.”

And now he feels a bit like he’s in their old dynamic again. Not as Master and Padawan, but certainly as individuals. There’s a little bit of that cheekiness-hiding-caring that he has not even realized he missed coming back.

“I could say the same to you.” Qui-Gon flinches at his tone, and it gives Obi-Wan a bit of vindication in wanting to rise to what had felt like bait. “Apologies. I did not mean that as a condemnation.”

“I think we are both on uneven footing right now.”

Qui-Gon nods. Obi-Wan manages a few bites of food and a few sips of the tea in the space granted by silence. “I am sorry for not taking Anakin on myself.”

“You were on a mission.” Qui-Gon sighs. “And it was unfair to ask that of you. I cannot undo it, and I still believe the boy needs to be trained, but it was unfair to ask that of you, especially in that moment.”

“I appreciate your consideration.”

“Obi-Wan, I mean it. I am sorry for what I did.”

And the catching point they’ve had for years. Obi-Wan is processing, but he needs to say _something_. Even if it’s not phrased how Qui-Gon wants to hear.

“Master Jinn, I meant what I said. I do appreciate it, just please. Give me a little more time.”

Qui-Gon nods. “Apologies, Knight Kenobi.”

They had argued. Ugly things had been said. Obi-Wan appreciates the apology for Naboo, for the sting that was his Master asking him to train a boy the Council had denied in what looked like his last moments. But he also still feels incredible hurt for so much of what happened related to Naboo.

He manages to finish his tea, while Qui-Gon is completely silent in front of him. He has only managed about a quarter of his food, but that’s why he’s been doing more meals in smaller quantities for now. Easier to manage, that way, than trying to eat a set number of larger ones. He grabs one of the small, reusable containers for it. If he’s feeling up to it later, maybe he can manage a few more bites.

“I should be going.” His comm pings as he speaks, likely Amilr or Quinlan. “Thank you for your company.”

“I would like to talk, sometime, if you’re open to it. Properly. Not just by chance in the refectory.”

“I’ll think about it, Master.”

He bows, a light and mild familiar bow not uncommon from the latter days of his apprenticeship, and then he leaves.

Anakin will be out of class soon, but Quinlan is in a seminar currently. Obi-Wan had promised to pick Ani up in his stead, and he had promised him they could go down to the salles and work on some kata together. Slow ones, as Bant had cleared him for.

Anakin has not minded so far, having to slow down to meet Obi-Wan where he is at during saber training. And he does not mind that afternoon.

For the first time in weeks, Obi-Wan sleeps with no dreams. He wakes up refreshed for what feels like the first time since leaving the Temple all those weeks ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Narrative Notes:   
> 1\. The last Therapy Chapter for a while, if there ever are more that fit within the narrative, but I really liked it and when I debated cutting it decided to keep it.   
> 2\. The Force isn't sentient, per say, in this, but if you'd spent a lifetime cultivating some kind of relationship with something like the Force then I think it's not outside the realm of the possibility it might feel like a friend, even knowing it isn't sentient.   
> 3\. Costor has a different approach to therapy than Reshi, if that wasn't clear, but he's also dealing with a different patient.   
> 4\. Am I one of those "love isn't attachment unless you can't let go" people? Maybe so. But given it's a natural thing, I think the Jedi are more than fine with love, particularly in familial and platonic senses as those can be negotiated with duty (imo) more than romantic love can. The nature of friendships and families is being a unit that can separate and detach when necessary, where there is so much about "husband and wife" that, even as far as we see in Star Wars, is culturally tied together.   
> 5\. Just because someone has therapy does not mean problems stop existing - from personal experience, sometimes it means learning to manage those problems to decrease them. That's why Obi-Wan's habit of emotional suppression/bottling things up is mentioned as still existing; it didn't stop just because he's had therapy, he just knows better how to manage it than he did when he was, say, 14.   
> 6\. If you've ever heard that warped warbling sound from sheet metal being hit by something, you'll know what I mean about the sound in this. I'll see if I can't find a link to a similar sound.   
> 7\. The response to extended times of being electrocuted are based on some research and me deciding "ah, well. This sounds right." with that context. So if I have the tremors wrong, my apologies, but I couldn't find things that were too concrete when I was searching, or maybe I just missed them.  
> 8\. We can't repair nerve damage, at least not to this level, on Earth as far as I know but this is a futuristic society with more advanced medicine. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  
> 9\. "Ratfucked" is indeed a word and I didn't know how to translate it into Star Wars when writing this knowing I already might need to explain what ratfucked means. Ratfucked has contradictory meanings (it's a slang term I learned from a friend in the USMC) and as it was explained to me it can either be an adjective for something that is in rough shape or it can mean to pillage through something and leave the best behind OR he used it to mean doing a deep clean of a place to leave no trace of mess behind.   
> 10\. I do intend for their to be chances for these two to make up, but it is going to be slow-going at first. There's a lot for them to unpack with one another, but they're both on the right track for it.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 31 BBY  
> I'm so glad you guys enjoy some of the outside perspectives and enjoy Shaak as much as I do, because I've been sitting on this one a while and was really excited to post it. It was fun to write an external perspective of this event. I don't have one for the actual event itself because the conversation is relatively unimportant to plot, but I might include it in the list of "asides" I plan to write someday for this.

Shaak agreed to watch Anakin, but that did not mean she was keeping him in the Temple for this.

He was not, as far as she had seen, going to walk the way of the Shadows. He was a bright young man, but he was not meant for the lifestyle and the subterfuge demanded of a Jedi Shadow. Many things could change between now and his Knighthood, but Shaak was fairly confident in her assessment.

And even if she was wrong, he was still a Shadow Padawan. He would receive the secondary trainings and the protections inherent in that. The first thing any Shadow learned upon taking on a Padawan was that they were treated to higher standards of protection within the Shadow infrastructure. Too often they saw and knew more than anyone realized.

Protecting the Padawan is the mandate of the Master. Protecting the operational security is the mandate of the Shadows.

Shaak walked into Dex’s about ten minutes before Kenobi and Vos were meant to arrive. She has taken that time to explain several different sections of the menu to Anakin (most of these explanations involved teaching him how to read words in Aurebesh that were not Basic, as well as helping him work out the ones he had no reference for from the practice he has gathered in the months at the Temple learning to read) and to talk him out of ordering off a section that may be liable to harm his human system or cause him discomfort in the case of the spicier options available. He is so incredibly enthusiastic at the variety of foods available here, and it is a delight to witness, though tinged with the knowledge this young boy is enthusiastic not strictly for variety, but for the allowance he's been given - Shaak has stressed to him he may order whatever meal he wishes. He needs the fuel, she says, he has training this evening after classes, after all. 

He still orders food spicier than most padawans would, and he talks lovingly of the kinds of dishes his mother once made. Shaak makes a note to reach out to some of her Outer Rim contacts and operatives; that his mother was left behind is an understandable in-moment necessity, but not an indignity that ought to be left to remain. There are jobs on Coruscant, certainly, should she choose to come to the Core and be close to her son, but more than that there are jobs around the galaxy and even on a planet as barren and limited as Tatooine.

It is not their mandate to end slavery, regrettable as that is. They do not have the resources for the operations necessary to destabilize, replace, and legitimate the regimes that have borne and perpetuated the structures for it. Instead, Shaak has, like many, had to settle for doing what she can where she can. This will include Skywalker’s mother, for whom a compelling case can be made with regards to keeping her safe to prevent her being used against Skywalker in future, and the exploitation of other opportunities as they arise.

Skywalker lights up and nearly calls to Obi-Wan as he and Knight Vos enter the establishment. Their rendezvous partners have yet to arrive.

“Remember what I told you, young Skywalker.”

“Oh! Right!”

His hair is dyed a light brown with a single-wash dye that is not uncommon for the quick-and-dirty missions that are sometimes undertaken on Coruscant. He has a brown shirt on, with a dark sash embroidered with patterns he had enthusiastically recognized and talked about as having to do with Tatooini mythology – the Twins Who Burned, the Sisters that were the moons, and other figures’ symbology that had been worked into the sash. Shaak had not recognized it when she grabbed it; it was a piece brought in from a long-term Outer Rim operation. Leaving it in Skywalker’s care was an easy enough comfort and connection to grant him – and leggings that are a heavier fabric. Quinlan has mentioned his padawan is often cold on Coruscant, used to the heat of twin suns.

“So why are we watching them?”

“We are here as back-up.”

“Are they in danger?” Anakin looks intrigued at the idea of adventure, even in a diner.

“Not quite, but it never hurts to keep an eye on our friends to make sure they’re safe.” Shaak pokes at her own food, keeping an eye on the two of them. Obi-Wan receives a very warm greeting from Dex in the form of a hug lifting him off the ground. Quinlan gets an affectionate clap on the shoulder from another of Dex’s hands that matches his personal comfort with touch. There are few people for whom touch is freely given and accepted with Quinlan Vos. His padawans, friends from his childhood, and a few others.

“Dex seems nice – is he who we’re worried about?”

Skywalker is serious the way few ten-year-old children are, but that is in many ways the expectation. Just as his background has primed him to process information gathered through observation or through narrative telling, as Quinlan has mentioned to her in discussions about how to overlap his training and Obi-Wan’s Shadow training for increased efficiency, his upbringing has brought him into a disposition that encourages suspicion of those he doesn’t know.

Anyone could be a Master of the kind his childhood has known, that does harm, as opposed to the teachers they are introducing him to in the Order.

“He is a friend, I assure you. He and Kenobi have a long history with one another,” Shaak shakes her head. “Kenobi has made some acquaintances on his last mission that are going to keep in contact with him.

“I want you to tell me what you notice about them, and then I want you to make guesses about who they are before we talk more about what it means for Obi-Wan that they are part of his life.”

Anakin nods, allowing himself to fall into the part-challenge-part—puzzle with the kind of intensity usually associated with particularly important homework assignments. He picks at his food now, before taking another actual bite.

“So Dex is safe?” He had only trusted Shaak after both Quinlan and Obi-Wan affirmed she was safe, so his seeking reassurance makes sense. Shaak wonders how much salt Anakin will take with her words, given he barely knows her. She has only what little trust the words of people he holds close could provide. 

Shaak smiles. “Yes. Dex is safe. And I’m quite sure, as soon as he knows you and Obi-Wan are close, you will find yourself just as warmly welcomed as Obi-Wan is.”

His eyes widen. “He looks like he’s crushing Obi-Wan.”

“I assure you, Obi-Wan is fine.”

His face sours at that. “Yeah, I _know,_ but I was just saying that’s what it looks like.”

Shaak should and could reprimand him, but she takes a breath. This is a young man a mere four months into his training as a Jedi, and four months into freedom. His chances to learn to balance his wit with respect for others had been compromised; Shaak opts instead for her own variety of teaching for it.

“And if you did not, would you find assurances welcome?”

Anakin puzzles through the sentence. According to his file, his Basic had been adequate upon admission into the Order; however, he was taught Basic as a trade language, largely, and a slave’s creole of Huttese, Toydarian, and other Outer Rim languages as his primary language. That Creole favored Huttese over Basic, and even now he is learning some of the vocabulary more common to the Masters of the Order.

“Assurances?”

Shaak takes a moment to define it for him, but he nods as he comes to understand. “Yeah. I guess. But still, he looks fine and he probably would say something, wouldn’t he?”

“What if he didn’t want to hurt Dex’s feelings?”

Anakin considers that, but Shaak settles for it being a mere seed of thought planted in his mind as their true targets come into the diner. “What do you think of those two, there?”

“Woah. I’ve heard stories about Zabraks – there’s a story Old Lilani used to tell about a Zabrak that would kidnap the children of slavers and turn them into a hunting game.” He flushes a bit when Shaak raises the muscles of what would be a human brow toward him. “I’m not saying he would do that, but he does look like he gets into fights a lot.”

“And how can you tell that?”

“He’s slouching like he wants to throw his fists up, and his coat’s pretty beat up. See that seam there? That has to have been mended at least a couple times to stick out like that - I saw it when Mom would help fix up our neighbor's stuff. And that thread on the pocket seam doesn’t even match the fabric.”

An astute boy, clearly, even if he didn’t always demonstrate it in Temple. She would have to inform Quinlan to look back over his Temple homework and grades. He had a mind on him, just one the Order was not geared, typically, towards using and nurturing. “And what of the woman?”

Anakin pauses at that. He watches her more carefully. He had near immediate insights on the man, Kaval based on what Kenobi has shared, but he seems to be taking longer to pick apart some of what he says.

“I think she’s not as sure of herself.”

“What makes you say that?”

It’s not something Shaak sees. She sees the edges of a soldier mixed with the bluster of a bounty hunter.

“Look at her hands. She’s fidgeting with her sleeve.”

She is indeed, and in the way of someone used to hiding it. In fact, Shaak is surprised she didn’t catch it sooner. “Well caught, young Skywalker.”

Anakin’s nose tweaks at that. “Why does everyone point that out? I know I’m younger than all of you, but it doesn’t seem fair to keep pointing it out.”

“Indeed?”

“Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I won’t think of something good. And it doesn’t mean I’m not useful.”

“No one is doubting your ability, I assure you.”

He speaks in terms of use and utility. It is something she noticed as they commuted here, and something she intends to bring up with Quinlan. It would do well, regardless of his path in the future, for him to be taught to think and speak in terms of ability, to reduce the chance of him taking unnecessary risk.

If he thinks it useful, he may endanger himself or others for an objective regardless if it is a realistic pursuit. If he thinks himself unable or in other ways compromised, he may find another way and preserve lives.

“What else can you tell me?”

“Obi-Wan likes them, but I don’t think he trusts them very much.”

That is clear. Kenobi smiles at them, laughs at their jokes, and is friendly with them. But where he leans towards Quinlan, he leans away from them. His eyes cut around them and continue surveying the area. If they’ve noticed – and Shaak suspects they have; Clan Eldar does not maintain its position in the galaxy through stupidity and lack of observational skills – they have not commented.

She has placed a recording device on Quinlan on the off-chance they say anything of value, but more than that she is trusting Kenobi to come to her to verify and self-report anything that does come out of it.

She needs to see for herself, after all, where his lines are. Until she knows for certain she will maintain a certain level of professional skepticism despite her enthusiasm at his recruitment. The job of a Shadow was one borne out of contradiction, and it was a line she walked very comfortably.

Ki-Adi has asked, in the past, how she managed. He had managed alright, certainly, but with time had to step out of the darkness for his own sake. She had yet to see what he had, to feel that pressure as he had.

Then again, Quinlan Vos was very like her in that regard. Many said he would see sense any day now or he would have enough; something would happen, and he would reach his limit. That had yet to happen; he loved the work and the work met him, in some respects, where he was.

“So, you think the woman, Amilr, is unconfident, you think the man, Kaval, is a fighter, and you think Obi-Wan doesn’t trust either of them. Anything else?”

Those are rudimentary observations, on some level. Certainly, he had seen differently than Shaak, but there was still room to improve. Anakin considers the entire group again.

“Quin finds Kaval aggravating. And Obi-Wan likes Amilr more than he likes Kaval. He doesn’t do that eyeroll thing with her – the one where his whole face moves? – he does that with Kaval more.”

It is a good observation; it is the kind of observation that could help him in extracting a mission partner in the future, or in protecting someone he cares about. They move on to observing the broader diner while Anakin continues eating his meal and occasionally talks about his projects. He mentions something about mouse droids getting into the laundry, but if Shaak misses a few details it is in the name of plausible deniability.

No, she doubts that Anakin will become a Shadow in his own right. He likes to be himself too much to cede to the demands of the work. He will benefit from their teachings, though, just as Padawan Secura had under Knight Vos. He will be as much a part of them as he wishes, up to recruitment. He has the in he needs; he is the padawan to a Shadow, and close with another.

The trip back to the Temple gives her room to contemplate her own notes from the outing. Anakin is tired, but as many ten-year-old children are, he is capable of brushing it off until she has brought him back to her office. He nods off in the chair, his head slumped at one corner of her desk. She smiles at that, pulling out her own work.

She types out a fast message to Mace, responds to report requests with the standard, abrupt message reminding the Council all the reasons individual Shadows were kept out of their direct purview, and then minds the time. It won’t be long now before Quinlan comes back for his padawan. No doubt, he will also have things to say to her one day over a casual work lunch about the Eldar siblings.

She knows he objects to her including Obi-Wan in that just yet, saying they do not know enough about how connected he is to them, but she knows that if he is not yet involved he needs to be.

There are moves being made in the galaxy; the Sith have returned as their intelligence has been suggesting they would for decades, not that many have listened given the centuries without noticeable Sith activity. There are rumors going around, and Shaak is not just chasing Shadows as she tries to tackle this issue, she is chasing vapor and clutching at dust. For everything she catches, she is left blinded to the bigger picture in a way intolerable for whatever it is brewing on the edges of the Force.

Obi-Wan Kenobi has an opportunity. She will not allow him to waste it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Narrative Notes:  
> 1\. No, Anakin will not magically lose his canon-compliant lack of subtlety. That does not mean he doesn't learn some things from a different Master. As much as we know the Jedi embody a communal approach to teaching, there is still evidence that padawans learn most things from their Master. As such, he will learn most things from Quinlan and (by virtue of the living arrangement) Obi-Wan. He spends the most time with them and is tangentially associated with the Shadows because of it.  
> 2\. Op-sec - the unintentional recurring theme as I plot and write this thing.  
> 3\. I can't kill Shmi, man. She's not going to be super involved in the plot, but she's not dying. Rather, I don't want to kill her.  
> 4\. My biggest thing when people complain about the Jedi not doing more to stop things like slavery is that the power structures that perpetuate that are hard to replace, particularly if we look at resource-poor regions like Tatooine. It invites corruption, because people begin competing in the face of scarcity. So, no. The Jedi, nor the Shadows by extension, are directly involved in destabilizing slave regimes outside of when it is feasible to do it and works within the mandates of the mission. Not in the moment, at least. I'd compare it to playing the long game. The more they do to perpetuate conditions and societies that are likely to shun slavery, the better the long-term chances are of regimes falling or changing over time. It's not perfect, but nothing ever is. In politics, the long-play is usually your best bet. Temporary fixes do nothing but cause upset. Whatever your feelings on interventionism, that's still the politically smart play if that's your goal. If the Jedi ran in and just got rid of the existing regime then a power vacuum forms and a (likely worse) new regime will take its place.  
> 5\. The narrative story-telling thing for information processing is actually an observed phenomena in groups that have low literacy or do not have a written form of their primary language. I imported it into this because it made sense.  
> 6\. Shaak isn't giving anything away that isn't already in the Temple rumor mill. What she is doing, however, is helping Anakin learn some basic espionage skills so that he has them in his back pocket if he ever needs them.  
> 7\. I do not use the term "Slave's Creole" as some kind of derogation against the language that I describe Anakin speaking. Rather, based on what we've seen of Tatooine and what I have learned of Creoles from classes (second major is German, and that comes with a helping of linguistics courses) it would make sense that there would be a contact language for the slaves that arises out of where they have all come from, and over time that would formalize a bit and include structures from the supra language(s) (in this case Huttese, primarily. The supra meaning the language of the faction in power).  
> 8\. Ethically dubious? Perhaps. But she's a spy, it's what she does. Even if she's administering other spies, it's still her mandate to do this.  
> 9\. Yeah I don't believe for a second the Jedi, with their in-built intelligence infrastructure, hadn't gotten at least _some_ warning about the Sith. If some who were less involved in the nitty-gritty of that intelligence work and the investigation of the Dark Side that the Shadows had, and that made them doubt, that's one thing. That's policymakers ignoring the intelligence in front of them at their own (and others') risk. It happens a depressing amount. But the Shadows had to know something given their line of work. Rumors are still a form of intelligence, even if not strictly reliable. The thing about intelligence is you can't "Know" anything for certain, but you can find evidence and draw conclusions - you can suspect.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wild Count Dooku appears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be scaling updates back to once a week as the semester approaches. Next week I have several shifts that fall during my usual writing window, I have the LSAT next weekend, and I'm trying to juggle my training for the Spartan races, and some pre-semester work I need to get done for projects for this semester. Soon after that, the semester will start in earnest. As my commitments increase, I need to scale this one accordingly. As such, updates will be on Fridays starting next week, so that I can make sure I'm still producing chapters at the quality I want for this story while also managing my other commitments.

Yan had not made his decision to leave the Order lightly. He was far from the first to become so disillusioned, and for a time it seemed as though his former Padawan would follow his footsteps if given time.

Still, he had new responsibilities and had not troubled himself overmuch with the concerns of the Order he had grown up in. They had provided him great wisdom, which he has since endeavored to use in his rule over Serenno. His sister had asked him to return to make better what his brother had done his damnedest to ruin.

He had friends there, though, and one of them was Jocasta who maintained a stubborn habit of reaching out with academic articles and readings he would otherwise be paying for (should be paying for, as a civilian of the broader galaxy, not that she would listen to him on that) and teasing him into debate over the matter. These connections…

The work of a ruler was thankless. He had been tempted toward the Dark Side before, by other Force Sensitives that had approached him. Oftentimes they were the kinds of individuals that were playing towards him, trying to promise him power in the chances that he would teach them to use their abilities. Often misguided, they assumed mere knowledge in the Dark Side was enough to counter Jedi, who had a lifetime of training behind them.

Still, the death of Sifo-Dyas comes as a blow to him. This is the closest he has felt to Falling, properly Falling into the Dark and the moral sleep it would allow. He glances down at the notice, and he looks to the four boxes of letters standing sentinel on a shelf of his study, two on either side of the room. There had, when he originally left, been only three. The letters were on flimsi, meant to simulate the feel of proper paper. Qui-Gon, Jocasta, and Sifo-Dyas had written him _letters_ not comm-messages, and he had done them all the proper honor due the gesture and started keeping them in the old boxes, made at one point for himself and his two siblings. His sister had gifted him hers, saying she had little use for it anymore, when she found him looking for something that felt _worthy_ of keeping these letters in.

And one day, his final grandpadawan had reached out. Had posed questions to him about the philosophy and theology he had been raised in, claimed an interest in hearing the views of a man who had left them willingly.

The fourth was, upon receipt of a reply to his own response, commissioned for the start of that correspondence. Kenobi was brash, in some sense of the word, and certainly appreciated the strictures he was given to operate in. He was a credit to Qui-Gon’s teaching, and time had grown him into a respectable young man. Yan hopes to meet him but questions the chances of that happening.

Serenno is taking ever more of himself and his time to run. The Republic does not respond to their needs, because Serenno, outside of a few resources valuable particularly to aquatic planets, was not valuable to the Republic as a political entity. He has not left in years.

The figure before him has visited before. He has his suspicions as to the man’s identity, has entertained him to a point in order to have those suspicions affirmed.

He is a small, slight man with a rasping voice that demands one give it suspect attention. Perhaps such a harsh judgement could be considered cruel on Yan’s part – he had certainly debated the merits of aesthetic judgements with Jocasta _and_ Obi-Wan over correspondence before – but he would rather judge someone too harshly and protect his people, than be overly meritorious and bring harm to Serenno. His brother had done enough of that. If he was to rule in the stead of his sister, who acted more and more as his primary companion and advisor, he would rule to leave a legacy of stability to Serenno. He has no grand designs of ushering in the next golden age of Serenno’s history, he would rather build the foundation for his nephew to do so.

His nephew, who even at sixteen seems convinced, in some respects, of Yan’s ability to reverse all the damage done by his other uncle.

His other uncle did not act alone, however; he acted and decided his positions based on the teachings of their shared father, and his father, and _his_ father. The history of Serenno has been written as one of chomping at the restrictive bit shoved into their mouths by the Republic and its sweeping bureaucracy, its redundancies meant to leave planets like Serenno in the dust.

And yet Yan cannot allow himself to fully accept that. Certainly, he will look for, point out, and repudiate the corruption and the squandering of resources and labor on planets that are less politically “viable”, yet he also knows that there is a history within Serenno itself that proves there are problems without the alternative. Power in the hands of the Sith Empire, even centuries before, had left its mark on Serenno. Leaving their dominion had taken considerable effort, even if Serenno was fond of harkening back to their self-executed freedom.

And here stands a Sith. A man who wants to tempt Yan to the Dark Side despite knowing his past with the Jedi, likely even because of it.

Rumor had it, and Qui-Gon had confirmed it in one of his recent letters, that the Sith had made themselves known in the galaxy again. Oh, some said “again”, but there was little to believe that they had ever truly left. Powers like that did not disappear, motivated by ideas as they were. Ideas could not be killed, and there would always be those tempted into the hedonistic embrace of the Dark Side and all its cloying promises.

Yan shakes his head at his guest. “And you once again waste my time, my Lord.”

“Count, I would not be wasting your time if you were not giving me at least some consideration.”

The man is cunning, Yan owes him that. He is, at least in form, giving him consideration. The consideration he would give any other threat to his people.

The same consideration he would give any other dark sider he came across when he was an active Jedi, perhaps more because where there is one, there is always a second. And given the age and that he had been bested by Kenobi, a young padawan on the cusp of Knighthood until he was killed, every indication suggests the man on Naboo was the Apprentice. As such, this man is likely the Master. Talking with and to him is a minefield of logical traps, but it is also indicative.

This man is seeking a new apprentice. He does not look towards the young, who would be easier to sway and to walk into logical corners, blind, and then lead out through a back alley of convoluted thought that would make them easier to trip into Falling. He looks towards an arguable elder. Towards a man who has trained Jedi himself, taken two padawans and seen them forward to Knighthood.

He is likely older than he tries to present. He does nothing to suggest he himself is young and spry, certainly, but he also is going out of his way to seem like he has years ahead of him. And perhaps, through the Force and the machinations of one who does not tread through it with the kind of hesitation and internal debate that the Jedi tend to approach the mysteries of the Force, he does. Perhaps he has lived longer than even some ancient Jedi have.

That matters little to Yan. What matters is knowing more about this man’s motives. He has approached someone that would likely be harder to coax away from the Light, away from the path he had been raised on.

Oh. Well, then. If he thinks leaving the Jedi, disenchantment with the legacy he was being told to uphold, means Dooku has some measure of spite in him towards them or that he has become disenchanted with the moral and ethical precepts he had spent decades learning and debating, then he is making a choice with every possibility of working. He is approaching the equivalent of a disgruntled employee, in that scenario, and asking for assistance in corporate espionage or similar.

Yan is not going to disillusion him here. He will say without hesitation there are problems within the Jedi Order and that he believes there needs to be more focus on the dangers the Force has seen fit to warn them against.

He will not tell this man that he still loves and cares, deeply, for people in that Order. That he would cut off his own hands before using them to do harm to those he cares for.

This man is seeking an apprentice, likely looking for one he needs to convince but not train. Yan is looking for information, likely information that will protect his people and his lineage and those _they_ care for.

“You come with the same arguments as before – tell me. Have you truly run out of useful parlance on this topic or do you merely hope that by avoiding naming what you speak of, the Dark Side of the Force, you will entice me towards your philosophies?”

Jocasta often accused him of sounding a bit like a thesaurus when he was nervous. If his enemies saw it as a mark of sophistication, arrogance, or some other trait beyond that, it worked in his favor.

This man seems not to see through him. In fact, knowing his true subject has been named he is emboldened and prattles on with the same promises and tales of the Sith that were “not so wise” and those of Sith Lords that would level planets, had they had the capabilities and technologies available to them now.

Yan listens and takes mental note of the so-slight rush with which the man speaks. Losing his apprentice was not part of the plan. An apprentice so young and so trained, likely trained from childhood, and likely unquestioning. Yan would say this man has had his plans thrown to a pack of starved Loth-wolves, were it not for the undercurrent of calm underneath it all. The sense of urgency is in replacement, in finding a right hand.

This is a man with contingencies. Count Yan Dooku of Serenno is merely one of them. His others could be any number of Jedi, anyone who has been disillusioned, sidelined, who visibly chafes against the Order in any way. Someone who does not need trained or cajoled, who will lack the uncertainties or brash assumptions of youth.

He knows of at least one man who fits that description on Coruscant. And while he has his doubts that Qui-Gon Jinn would ever entertain this man, much less grant him the courtesy of listening, but he has been gone from the Order several years. He does not know Qui-Gon as well as he once did, would never claim to if he had his wits about him.

“And say I find myself swayed by what you offer. Surely you don’t think there would be any trust from the Jedi of a man who once left?”

Because what else could he be after in a right-hand but a spy?

“Ah, but I don’t need the Jedi’s trust. I need the trust of the people.”

A politician? While there are maneuvers around and through Dooku in the Serennian administration, he hardly has power outside of his system.

“I would encourage you to take your leave, before my staff rejoins for their workday.” Yan stands from where he has been sitting, the guest following suit after a moment as though this were _his_ home. “In the meantime, come back with stronger arguments and perhaps I will reconsider my position.”

They have ended this conversation similarly before, but never have they named the true origins of this man’s hubris, nor have they ever come close to his goals. There is progress here; now he must be careful in how he communicates it to those with far more power to manage it than he has. His people demand it. The safety of his sister, his former Padawans, his friends, requires it. 

He knows better than to write anything down. There is not a code in the galaxy that has not been broken. And yet, he needs to keep this information safe somewhere.

Hence the paintings he has taken to storing and stowing in darkened rooms few but himself ever visit. There is information encoded in them, ever carefully, and then masked further by actioned subject matter. He will bring someone here, then. He will encourage them to listen to him. Will use his encoded notes to explain it, have them out and displayed as the exhibition of a local artist.

Shaak Ti will see through the ruse – Yan, in his younger years, had rather enjoyed art alongside his penchant for broader learning – but she will be cautious and wise enough not to say a thing about it. How she handles it may be entirely out of his hands, but he will not sit by and watch these people walk into a massacre they could not see because they were not looking in the right places.

The man that walks out is a powerful one. Is in the Senate, if Dooku had to guess.

Yan Dooku, Count of Serenno, starts quietly arranging the succession as his own form of contingency. It will go to his sister, until such a time as her son is ready to ascend to the title at eighteen – two years’ time – and should Yan live longer than that, it will go directly unto his nephew. He will be, under the laws, required to maintain one advisor from the previous Count’s administration, and Yan starts the process of vetting which one will be least likely to manipulate and abuse the power over his nephew for their own gain. Certainly, they are all capable and have motivation to do so; he will do his best to secure the safety for Heran anyway.

The galaxy has been changing under their feet for decades. Yan must merely work to keep up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Narrative Notes:   
> 1\. I think it was in Legends on Wookiepedia where I read he left the Order due to questioning and because his sister wanted his help deposing their brother. So I kept that here, because I liked that framework for setting up his arc in the story. I did add to some of it because there wasn't much information on what he was doing to need deposed, but one can imagine what it was. Also, I kept him using the wisdom he learned in the Order even if he didn't necessarily agree with Order decision-making because you don't spend your whole life in something like the Jedi Order without absorbing the philosophy. Furthermore, it is possible to live by Jedi philosophy without being a Jedi, so I could see him taking it as a framework by which to rule his home planet and by which to try and improve conditions there.   
> 2\. Love re-reading what I wrote and realizing I have a dead character and need to rewrite some sections of the story. That's always fun. I'm rewriting about half of Chapter 22 it would seem.   
> 3\. I will die on the hill that Dooku starts sounding "sophisticated" when he's nervous. He's certainly well-spoken normally I think canon well establishes that. But I love the idea that his main tic is that he starts sounding even more formal.   
> 4\. If we're working off of the idea that Dooku left the Order to oversee his home planet, it doesn't make sense for him to figuratively jump into bed with the Sith who have a history of subjugation. That's why I'm giving him a more underhanded approach to all of this - I could see him playing to the Sith in order to get information or work against them in some way, but I'm not convinced someone motivated out of duty to his planet (and some level of disenchantment with the Jedi, I hope it's clear I'm not denying that) would just go into this blindly.   
> 5\. I made Dooku a painter because it feels like it fits honestly. And hiding things in artworks has a long history in espionage and counterespionage.   
> 6\. The thing about intelligence work (I don't know if I stressed/mentioned this in the last notes) is you can very rarely know for certain on things, you can suspect. That's why he is drawing conclusions about the Sith that's visiting him - he doesn't have proof, but he can build a theory and then start digging a little more to see if there is any substantiation.   
> 7\. Heran is the nephew. I didn't include the name until that point and it was for a reason but I don't actually remember why.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 31 BBY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wer mochten einen deutsche Übersetzung bei diesen Fic? Ich beginnt etwas und kann es komplett machen, aber es wird schlauer sein, zwischen Aktualisierungen, weil Deutsch meinen zweite Sprache ist. Ich brauche mehr Zeit, Korrektur zu lesen.

Shaak Ti wishes she could give the scant information gathered from the recording more time. She wishes she could dissect it, consider finding Ruusaan Eldar in her own time and offering her work with the Order under the guise of watching out for her son, but she does not.

Because three separate Shadows have approached her with news of the Darkest sort. There is a Sith approaching Jedi, and a specific variety of them.

Older, typically though not exclusively, and with a reputation within the Order for maverick tendencies. It is pressing to her that two of the Shadows who approached her have innocuous reputations at best outside the Order; an argument could be made that they have no reputation, no name or acknowledgement outside the Order. It is what makes them good at their jobs, that they are not recognized in the broader galaxy, even if in the Order they are known for being out side the ordinary and normal.

Within, that is where they have reputations varying from ruthless and efficient to outright rebellious. And these are the people approached by a Sith who should not have this information, excepting very specific individuals.

The Senate Law Enforcement Oversight Committee has access to Jedi files, and, on some level, gossip and rumor makes its way into reports. Snide remarks – “True to form, said Knight…” were a common tactic – were often seen as a way of providing unofficial censure amongst equals, a way to make record of the incident without causing disciplinary action in many cases. That is her first suspicion.

Following that, there is the Senatorial Committee on Jedi Relations that has a more politic role – they opt to engage with individual Jedi as needed and encourage deeper ties with the Senate. The Shadows under her command know better than to reach out themselves, know to guard without much or any indication of their actual job within the Order, and she knows they would be careful in any interaction.

No, she cannot rule out the SCJR, but there is no reason to overly suspect them.

These are the primary suspects for where the information comes from, but there is another glaring possibility she dares not write down but cannot neglect.

The Chancellor has access to most all information the Senate produces. The SLEOC may have sanctioned reports of certain Jedi, and the Chancellor may have requested it himself in his new role following his succession of Chancellor Valorum. Shaak has never particularly liked the opportunistic (if otherwise outwardly ideologically consistent) nature of Sheev Palpatine, and she is not inclined to trust him.

She is not inclined to trust politicians, generally, she should say. That is true, but there is certainly a different level of mistrust for higher levels of government, and further for Sheev Palpatine. Particularly as she digs further into his history.

Opportunism is not strictly unethical, but it calls into question his commitments. She serves the Jedi Order, but she is not naïve enough as to think that there is no overlap between the intelligence work her Shadows do and the intelligence work the Senate commissions from their own intelligence bodies. If anything, she knows that any reports they make are able to be requested through the bureaucratic machinery of the Republic. Even as thoroughly classified or redacted as the Public Relations Division of the Shadows can make the reports, there are those in the Senate that have ways to get them.

(And isn’t the Public Relations Division such a misnomer. Rarely speaking to news outlets without careful planning, answering questions as vaguely as possible. They work to protect secrecy and curate a public façade of uninteresting, largely academic work. The less interest people have in the Shadows, the better they work.)

Shaak sighs as she looks through the information she’s assembled. Reports, informal information passed along in order to make sure it made its way up the chain without being written anywhere official.

The organization itself acknowledges the faults of their connection to the Order and thereby their connection to the Senate. They know there are some things they have to guard jealously for fear that those not educated in the dangers of the Dark Side might wish to weaponize it.

The Sith have resurfaced, already. They do not need Senators calling for Sith artifacts to be used for “security” purposes.

Three Shadows with similar accounts of an elderly man, cloaked, who hides himself in the Force with a careful hand in order to prevent future recognition. He has knowledge that would only come through official (or official-adjacent) channels. There is a man trying to find an apprentice and he doesn’t want the younger Jedi if he can avoid them.

He is being extremely careful, but that is why she hides her Shadows in plain sight. Not even Qui-Gon Jinn, if she’s doing her job correctly, will know that Obi-Wan has been brought into their ranks. The recommendation through Mace means that the Council proper will only know as far as it matters to his mission reports. Knights reporting to alternative Councils is not abnormal, in order to maintain some level of efficiency.

Mace Windu, Quinlan Vos, Ki-Adi Mundi, and herself know explicitly of Kenobi’s recruitment. And he has the discernment to know not to say anything about it himself. He knows his responsibilities.

The point, she reminds herself, is that three separate Shadows have been approached because they are out of the norm. Because many Shadows fit that description in order to meet the requirements of their job.

If three Shadows have been approached, she wonders who else has been. She sends a comm message to Mace. A work-lunch, ostensibly, but in the outdoor gardens. She gathers a scrambler and some notes.

“We have a lead on the Master.”

Mace shudders at that. The scrambler, he had noticed, and he had grimaced at it. “And?”

“And they are most certainly in the Senate. Careful in your dealings, I cannot be certain how far their reach is.”

A bit of a stretch, they both know. Shaak is rarely certain of anything, given the nature of her work. But it is the warning she needs to give him, the one she suspects he will hear.

“Understood. I appreciate all your hard work, Master Ti.”

“I am doing my duty.”

They have non-perishable foods that the refectory keeps on hand. They have food that Shaak selected, because she is making a point. She knows that Mace sees it.

Shadows are trained to swallow before they taste. To chew with no attention to what they eat. Kenobi is good at it, but Shaak knows it was hard-won. Still, he has learned it faster than many of their recruits do.

The food she has packed is battle food. It will not spoil in most varied conditions, it will survive contact with the enemy, it is easy to pack. It is food that will last, will provide, and will get a Shadow – or a soldier – through.

There have been whispers of discontent for years, on the Outer Rim Republic and non-Republic worlds alike. They have become vocal statements of the Republic’s corruption – Ryloth comes to mind, with Orn Free Ta barely containing the news of insurrection and uprising coming out of his home world. Should it reach the wrong ears, he could be pushed out of office and Ryloth permitted a new election – and now the Mid-Rim whispers. Part in awe of their Outer Rim counterparts, who have spoken up and are not facing a consequence (yet. The mighty hand of the Republic will not stand this long, if it seems a threat) and part in question. They, too, often are left behind in the power struggles of the Senate. Serenno is one of the few quieter worlds in all these struggles, but Shaak does not believe for a second that means that Yan Dooku is not contemplating what would be best for his people – the Republic, or some alternative. He is shrewd, and he is dedicated wholly and completely towards that which he takes on. He will not allow himself to be blinded with loyalty to an entity out of habit when he could, instead, do work to better the situation his people face.

She has shown Mace what she expects is awaiting them. She does not know when it will happen, but war is on the horizon and it is coming in their lifetime whether they like it or not. They are in a waiting game and she will not let the Council squander the opportunity to prepare, just as she will do everything in her power to prevent them from saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.

He gets the message. Do not trust the Senators. Do not trust the status quo. Everything crumbles as quickly as the ration bars, and even as they may try to prevent it, they will need to prepare for it in equal measure.

“We have Padawans and younglings to think about.”

“We have sent Padawans on missions far more dangerous.”

It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, but she will not deny the truth of it. Jedi children grow up far faster than many, but far slower than others. Some planets are embroiled in war, their children do not know anything else.

She remembers the haunted look in Kenobi’s eyes, when once she saw him after he returned from Melida/Daan. The heavy bags from lack of sleep, the focused intensity that drowned out all but what was in front of him in that moment. They’ve seen it before in Shadows on war-torn planets, but in a child in the Temple it was so pronounced. That is what awaits their padawans, if war comes and they are not prepared. 

She remembers seeing him with his friends, several months later, and knowing that he was relearning what childhood was, in some sense.

Jedi children grow up faster than most. They do not grow up the fastest of all, and for that she should be grateful for all she is insinuating they may be about to throw Jedi children into a fire that will forge warriors before it forges peacekeepers.

Peace hard won, though, will be peace valued if she is not mistaken. And she has to hold onto hope that it is not too late to ensure they do this right.

“What of the younglings? Are we going to start teaching them about war tactics?”

“Don’t we already teach teenagers about battle strategy? Are we not meant to adapt, Master Windu?”

This is professional. She needs him to understand she is not unfeeling about the subject. But on the professional level there is more to consider than her feelings on the subject. If the Jedi can secure peace fast, then the war brewing on the horizon will not be one that takes more lives than strictly necessary. If they are unprepared, though, she knows that the only thing awaiting them is carnage.

Shaak Ti, though few know it, is no stranger to war. She recognized in Kenobi what she had, years prior, seen in herself. A young Knight herself, a new recruit to the Shadows herself, though after that mission it would be many years before she would rejoin the organization, and she had gone to a war-torn planet in search of a Sith artifact. There was a theory that perhaps it was leaking into the Force around the planet, that the war that had been started, for all it had the political and social trappings of other wars, had garnered its particularly brutal and bloody reputation from the influence of the Dark side whispering in the ears of the people without them realizing it.

It hadn’t been, but Shaak had spent years navigating between two sides that were less inclined to listen to anyone about matters when they could tear into each other. The artifact itself was certainly bleeding into the surrounding area, but she found it in a remote location, secured from unwanted intrusion like many Sith artifacts tended to be.

She had spent so long on that planet, searching for the artifact while trying not to become a casualty in the war. Trying not to die by a stray blaster bolt or bomb shell, and trying not to cross the people of the planet and open the opportunity they called for her head.

She knows warfare. She read, after the fact, on the signs. On the conditions that invite it – the mounting of arms on either side, the increasing tensions, the distrust.

The Republic rests on unstable ground.

“Master Windu, we can find ways to protect Padawans and younglings when the time comes. But this Order must prepare itself for the worst, even as we hope for the best. We have a duty to answer the calls made of us, and if the Force calls us into a war we must do everything in our power to end it quickly.

“Do not make the mistake of so many. Do not blind yourself to inconvenient truths.”

“I worry that your job is getting to you, Master Ti. Everything may not be so dark as you seem to think.”

“Say I’m wrong. Preparation for something that does not indeed come to pass is better than for that same catastrophe to catch us off-guard. Please, do not allow yourself to fall into complacency.”

He grimaces at that and she suspects she’s won the day here. Even if not immediately, she has made it clear: they cannot afford to treat this unrest and disquiet like they have in the past - part of an ebb and flow of discontent natural to democracy that results in larger policy changes. They have reason to believe the government itself suffers from Sith corruption and influence beyond the normal levels of corruption. They know that there have been complaints and calls for reform for generations.

It is wise, then, to listen to his intelligence network when it brings distasteful news. Uncomfortable possibilities with the indication of truth.

Shaak leaves him with the scrambler on the rooftop. “The Shadows will remain ready, as ever, Master Windu. I will entrust the rest of the Order to your capable hands.”

His scowl told her he wished she had more for him.

Until she made sense of what she was learning, until she had more herself, the most she could say was what she had already told him.

He would learn to make his peace with it, if only for his own sanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This chapter was originally Shaak Ti trying to lure Ruusaan into working with/for the Order but I scrapped it and re-wrote it as this instead. I don't think I saved the original, though, unfortunately.  
> 2\. We are revisiting this because from Dooku's perspective you've got worry over Qui-Gon. But Shaak has a lot more of a stake in someone trying to poach Jedi, and has more information.  
> 3\. I made up the committees based on what I know of actual Congressional oversight committees and inter-agency committees.  
> 4\. The Shadows, I figure, would probably have institutional paranoia. Senate having a committee just to strengthen ties with the Jedi? Yeah, they're staying pretty far away from that if they can. Most intelligence agencies, even if they play nice with public relations, do not want people getting close, and more than that they want lawmakers far away from their actual operations. They have people for giving briefs, but when lawmakers get involved in intelligence work they often derail it looking for the wrong thing or looking too closely at the wrong place. Hence why Shaak doesn't rule out the Jedi Relations committee, but she doesn't jump right into them. They're less likely, not impossible.  
> 5\. I don't think Palpatine would, right out of the gate, deviate from what he had set his political platform as. I think that's a big reason outside of the Clones being made, that it took ten years for his whole war plot to come to fruition - he needed to take small steps towards a different ideology and towards building allies. If he came out of the gate like that it was going to alienate most of the Senate. Instead, I think at the beginning (given this is 31 BBY, so we still have about 9 years before the Clone Wars start) he would lean more towards taking opportunities that may raise eyebrows, but do not actually conflict with his professed views.  
> 6\. Every Intelligence operation needs "PR". While generally speaking this may not the same wing that works to handle redactions and other technical stuff, the Shadows are, from what we can gather, rather small. As such, it would not be insane to think they might combine these two areas (after all, redaction for public consumption is a part of public relations) in order to maximize, to whatever extent they can, their available field agents. That, and there are some Temple-bound Jedi who work with the Shadows, but that's getting into some Later Information...  
> 7\. I could see literally any lawmaking body working to use something like Sith artifacts for security. Because, depending on your view of international relations (and we are about to get into theory a little bit here), the security dilemma is a real and powerful force in international politics. Even more so in galactic politics; you don't want to be caught by the threat off-guard so best to prepare for it in any possible way. Including weaponizing the Dark Side.  
> 8\. I'm not kidding when I say this will go through Clone Wars. It's just going to take A While to get there. Sorry, guys.  
> 9\. I think at least some Jedi would be understanding, if critical, had Dooku Just joined the Separatists (BEFORE the war got underway and the Separatists were shown, at least in Clone Wars, to have tolerance for what we would consider war crimes. I imagine by this point, the GFFA has its own version of the Geneva Conventions, etc.) and not been a Sith. If he thinks it's what is best for his people, I could see there being some level of "I think you're misguided, but do what you must." I hate that you all can't read my mind, though, because I have some Plans for Dooku and I want to talk about them with someone but don't want to give spoilers.  
> 10\. I know people have mixed feelings on Melida/Daan, but this is why I included it: I needed something in there that came back around as a harbinger. That there was something in Obi-Wan's Legends history that worked so well was a boon, given this fic largely centers on Obi-Wan, among others.  
> 11\. I'm not trying to imply that the Jedi could have prevented the war or the amount of death had they known or been more prepared, just that they might have reduced some of it if they weren't caught off-guard like canon seems to imply they were. As such, Shaak here is more thinking that they'll lose fewer people if they are prepared, not that they won't lose anyone.  
> 12\. Aaaand we've come back to the security dilemma: better to prepare for something than not. But the reason it's called a dilemma is that in the Security Dilemma if Country A starts arming, then Country B has to start wondering why. And when they start arming to match, it creates an arms race that, in IR theory, almost always ends in war.  
> 13\. The ebb and flow thing is based on my observations wherein popular support meets external pressure (often war, not always) that leads to major policy reforms. An example would be the National Health in Britain, following WWII.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 31 BBY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll get back to Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Quinlan soon, I promise. Just have some other stuff to set up for later. 
> 
> Also I'm officially up from 18/19 credits to 21. Thanks, German professor.

Jocasta arrives on Serenno through what she affectionately refers to as her “back channels” before Yan can decide if he is going to have a headache after her impromptu stay or not.

She was once a Shadow, he knows. Briefly, in their youth, and then she left to tend the Archives and work in research. Too much fun, she had said affectionately, and not for her. Yan had always doubted the “fun” part of the Shadows’ work, just as Sifo-Dyas had laughed at that and moved immediately towards attempting to prod stories out of her. In his grief, something of Yan ached for those younger days when things seemed clearer.

But perhaps they had never been so clear for Jocasta. As skilled as she had been, she struggled when they were Knights. She struggled to define herself and find her place, and in the end when it seemed she finally found it she had cast it off and cloistered herself in the Archives.

Yan would never go so far as to assume that meant she was untalented or in anyway compromised in ability. No, he had known Jocasta when they were students. She took seriously the mandate that they, as Jedi, must be as fit for peace as they are fit for battle. She would not let her skills dull and become lackluster in the face of work within the Archives.

So Jocasta awaits him in the Serenno morning, sitting with his sister and sharing a cup of what is either tea or caff, and that is going to be his first indication for how this conversation will go. Tea, and this is either a social call, or one with moderate aims.

Caff, and she is bolstering herself, Jenza, and Yan himself for whatever she is bringing to him.

Jocasta had been quick to reconcile the decision Yan made, one of the first to fully respect it even as she wrote to him and kept him within the circles of his friends, kept him grounded in that he had support outside of Serenno. She had never come uninvited (and he has certainly invited her in past, when missions for the Archives took her outside the Temple).

And here she sits, with Jenza whom she has met all of one time. Neither individual is talking much, murmurs at best, and Yan reaches into the Force. There is foreboding, there is a point here and he cannot see what it is.

He wonders if this is what Mace Windu meant when he spoke of shatterpoints, and if they were so much clearer and louder to him than other Jedi. If that was the case, then Yan’s estimation of him, already rather high for all he had proven himself over time as a capable and mindful man with a will of iron, rose.

“Brother.”

“Jenza.”

She handed him a mug with caff in it, made to his preferences (very little sugar included, and a moderate amount of cream).

Yan took his seat at the head of the table, conveniently between the two women.

“You really ought to have introduced me to your friends before they started dying, Brother.”

“In Yan’s defense, Contessa, I have my doubts any of us anticipated Sifo-Dyas’ untimely demise.’

Was that what this was about, then? Had Yan missed something in the news, and had Jocasta come to enlighten him as to what she meant to communicate to him?

Jocasta turned towards him. “I have been going through Sifo’s things. You know how he was.”

Writing his visions in journals, obsessively, as so few Jedi had ones of that strength – his own grandpadawan was one of few that was similar in terms of intensity, clarity, or frequency. And even he had stopped listening so closely when mentored under someone rooted heavily in the Living Force who encouraged him away from falling into his visions.

“And you know the legends about his people.”

War-torn because of the preponderance of “Seers”, as they were called there, in the Cassandran sector. Jocasta did not need him to clarify. Nor did Jenza, though she did roll her eyes. “You taught me, Brother mine, that foresight was not necessarily ignorable.”

“Nor did I teach you that foresight was to be immediately heeded, Sister mine.”

For all she gave sound advice and was one of few he trusted, Jenza is everything a younger sibling was meant to be, from what Yan had observed.

Insufferable, and smart about it. More than that, she was clever in her moves for information. 

Jenza gestures to Jocasta. “I believe, dearest Jocasta, that you had something else to say to my brother?”

Dearest Jocasta? Yan wants to huff, for all he swallowed the impulse. He wonders if he should fear this partnership, given both women are formidable and in complementary fashions. Should they set their minds to it, he has little doubt they could be effective leaders.

He sets the thought aside.

Jocasta sips her caff and watches Yan carefully. “Sifo had some concerns, as his visions started coming more frequently. We spoke of them, periodically, though I doubt I ever truly talked him out of taking action.”

“Taking action?”

Jocasta removes one of Sifo’s leather journals from her bag, and then another. This one is locked with a puzzle – and isn’t that typical of Sifo-Dyas, who would rather keep his visions to himself than share them if they felt truly disastrous?

Prophecy, Yan knows, is a dangerous gift to possess. It seemed, some days, to only fall into the hands of the reticent, and he wonders once again if the Force is its own sentience and is intelligent in who it hands the gift to, or if it is a question of nature attracting gifts. He could ask Jocasta, but she would lead him along routes of debate that left him no answers. Likely, she had none herself.

“Yan, Sifo saw war on the horizon. A hundred variations, a hundred different ends. But he was concerned, and I think he pulled the wrong thread.”

Jocasta had once been a Shadow, and Yan had accepted that just as he had accepted her resignation. The look in her eyes and the sheer amount of secrets he can feel thrumming around her and he begins to wonder if she ever _stopped_.

“He saw war. Did he say between whom?”

“The Republic. And you.”

She elaborates, and in one-hundred variations, she says, Yan leads a movement against the Republic. In many, he dies at the end of the war, in some he lives.

In some he fights the Republic, but he does not fight against them. That is her phrasing, and Yan puzzles at it, just as he puzzles at the journals she hands him.

“You are going to have to make a decision, Yan.” Jocasta has cold star-fire in her eyes. Jenza has remained quiet, an advisor to the last and intent on gathering all the details before she gives Yan her impression of everything. Likely, she will wait until she has taken more of Jocasta’s measure, perhaps even waiting until after Jocasta leaves. “And I will not begrudge you whichever choice you make. But should you move against me and mine, our years of friendship will not stay my blade.”

He has always known Jocasta was a formidable fighter, and he doubted his ability to defeat her in combat. Certainly, he had confidence in his own abilities. But that confidence means he acknowledges his own faults and weaknesses. He will not delude himself into thinking that he is bound to win in that fight.

Jocasta is a duty-bound and honor driven woman. She will, to the last, honor this promise. He doubts that to her it even sounds like vengeance; she has always had interesting ideas on justice.

Jenza hums at that and gestures to the soon to be empty cups. “Well, as delightful as seeing you once more has been, I must step away. Perhaps you would not be opposed to joining us for dinner.”

Dinner is always a quiet affair between the two of them, with Heran often out with friends or taking dinner in his room to work on his studies. While there was never much in the way of words between them, both of them inheriting what Yan has been informed was their mother’s penchant for melancholy and ponderance, since the death of their other sibling things have been a more tense affair. He and Jenza are not close, per say, though they are loyal to one another. They would also be the first to throw the other out of an airlock, if it ever came to that. And while Yan has the Force on his side, has years of combat training, there is a part of him that knows it would take monumental forces to push him so far that he would bring harm to his own flesh and blood, just as he doubts he could bring true harm to his lineage.

(Truer harm, he supposes, than the look on Qui-Gon’s face when he said he was leaving the Order. Yes, permanently.)

Jocasta waits until she leaves. She has a way of seeming both completely immersed in her surroundings and yet utterly disengaged from them that has put Yan off since they were younger, and she employs it now.

“You know something more.”

“I know that your lineage has a penchant for the dramatic, I’ll say that much.” She hardens. Jocasta is a nice woman, when she wants to be. She has a tongue sharp as honed beskar when she wants it. “And I know that you trust that woman more than I think you’ve ever trusted the Jedi. Your Force signature is all over her mind, shielding her from damn near everyone.”

“She is my sister. She is one of the few family members I have left.”

Jocasta gets the edges of her sly grin from their youth, a grin he thought long since gone in favor of the more amenable face known across the Order as belonging to the Head of the Archives. “Is she smarter than you?”

Yan huffs a laugh. One of Jocasta’s interesting philosophies, this one on power. Though he is not merely obliging her when he answers. “Most certainly.”

“Then I’m glad she’s your key advisor. I wasn’t kidding about this war, Yan. I might not know all the details as they come to pass, but if and when it does…”

“Sifo-Dyas was my friend, too, Jocasta.” Yan lifts the journal from the table, hesitating a moment to allow protest. She does not. Instead she nods at him, gestures to it. “If he was so worried about where I would wind up in this war, why wouldn’t he reach out?”

“Because you wanted nothing to do with the Jedi, and he was respecting your boundaries.”

“And you disrespect his in death?”

“I think he was shortsighted. I respected not reaching out before he died, but with the circumstances of his death?

“Yan, there are too many questions left behind in his death for me to respect his wishes. You are important, you and so many others.

“I refuse to let you walk through the next years blind.” She smiles at him, and Yan knows the conversation is over. For all he rules this planet, Jocasta has always been particularly adept at directing conversations around her. “You’ve come into your own here. People appreciate you.”

His people will never love him, but they know he’s their alternative.

He has made his peace with that.

That they appreciate him will and must be enough. That others see it, well. It warms something in him.

"It is my home."

"In a way I don't know the Temple ever was."

"Temple life was rather..."

Jocasta sighs as he hesitates. "You don't have to justify yourself to me, Yan. You are a grown man and you made your own decisions. I'm glad they've been good for you.

"Promise me you will give the same amount of thought to decisions in the future that you gave to leaving, though?"

Yan gives the promise, and it weighs on his mind even as he leaves Jocasta to his library (“Really, Yan, you would have gotten me here so much faster if you had told me about the books you had here.” And Jocasta has always been a learned, sharp mind. He did not realize how much he missed her company.) and as he walks towards his office where he knows Jenza is waiting for him.

“You will be involved in this war.”

Yan sighs. “I would have to read through his journal to know better, Jenza.”

“I think it’s a little late for that, Yan. You’ve heard the rumors.” She shakes her head. “People are stirring the pot. There are whispers of a separatist movement starting, of planets trying to break off from the Republic. You are going to be involved in this war. Serenno has been neglected by the Republic, if we joined these detractors, very few would be surprised.”

“You would have me break off from the Republic.” And no matter what choice they make, it is infinitely more complicated than that because Yan's past with the Jedi calls his every decision into question and scrutiny. 

“I would have you put yourself in a rather interesting position. If you are part of this from an early moment, you might be able to better negotiate the Republic off the ledge of war.”

“Who is to say the Republic would fire the first shot? We cannot know the future, Jenza. Not even through the variable visions that my friend once had.”

She sighs. She knows he is right, but he cannot neglect what the Force has sought to leave in his hands.

The visions of Sifo-Dyas, for one, and the feeling that the decision to simply jump into this movement is one that, now, would be inadvisable. It is not a feeling of someone throwing brakes on the decision, like other times the Force has sought to push him off a decision. No, it is trepidation, it is like a whisper of _not yet_.

He looks to the journal and to his sister. “I will consider it. Give me time.”

She nods. “Alright.”

She stands, but before she leaves has one more matter to tend to. “You have a tendency, brother, to wait. You waited overlong, and we suffered under Ramil and his plans. Do not throw this opportunity away to contemplate it too long.”

Jenza is one of his most prized and level-headed advisers. He will never dispute that. But even he can admit that she is, at times, an opportunist. She knows what she wants, and when the way to get it is clear she does not like to tarry.

Discretion is the better part of valor, though, and he simply nods as she leaves. He will take his time with this decision. He will evaluate what Sifo-Dyas saw in his visions, and then he will make arrangements based only on what he can actually control.

He knows, as well as he knows that his sister may not like his plan of action, whatever it may be, that there is actually very little he can control. He will settle for that small amount, though, in the interests of not hurting his people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Jocasta Nu is probably one of my favorite side characters because the more I learn about her the cooler she is. So, I made her a Coruscant-based Shadow. I figure they would have people on Coruscant trying to keep an eye out on fellow Jedi. The people with the most experience around the Dark Side would likely be the ones who had the best preparation to spot it in others. Not a perfect system by any means, and I imagine plenty of people fall through the cracks, but it's something.   
> 2\. Okay I know the Jedi are peacekeepers, but they are also combat practitioners. I would believe they may not be used to commanding large forces as we see in Clone Wars, at least not at first, but I don't believe that those who were able wouldn't be keeping up to standards in case they were needed for combat.   
> 3\. I went with the Italian term Contessa because I like it more than the term Countess. That's it. And as his second in command, though not his wife, I could see her carrying the title of Contessa of Serenno. She is still part of the Royal Family, and is first in line for the Throne. How I figure it, Serenno is of equal primogeniture, but Jenza didn't want the throne and knew her limits, hence calling Yan back. I also figure that Serenno likely wants there to be two rulers, even if not officially, so siblings of the current Count/Contessa would likely take an equal title to indicate 1. Their rank, and 2. that they are serving in equal capacity to the actual ruler. They speak with the same voice, in essence, so they make sure to strategize and that titles reflect that.   
> 4\. You can't drop a man with intense visions from the Cassandran sector on me and not expect me to play with the lore. (Source: Wookiepedia for Sifo-Dyas)   
> 5\. They may speak with the same voice, but that is still his little sister. And this is far from an official meeting. More than that, though, she has to parse what information about the Force she has. Now she has two sources, but one that has taught her more and one she barely knows. Of course she is going to pose questions meant to draw information out.   
> 6\. So to clarify, Jocasta has her suspicions that Sifo-Dyas has contracted the Kaminoans for the clones, but she doesn't have evidence. She isn't about to throw that out there until she has Dooku as an ally and until she knows more. Also, as an outsider, there is only so much she can tell him to begin with.   
> 7\. The line about the airlock - They both want what's best for Serenno. If the other starts acting in self-interest they are willing to put them down like they did their brother. That's what that's supposed to mean.   
> 8\. Did I borrow/repurpose some West Wing dialogue? ABSOLUTELY. (See the scene where Leo overhears Jed advising someone about how to run an administration and Jed says "Do you have a best friend? Is he smarter than you? That's your Chief of Staff.)   
> 9\. I can understand Jedi teaching others to shield, but I could also see them working to set up shields themselves. I figure without the Force there is only so much that one can learn through guided meditation because they can't feel how it works in the Force. Hence Yan shielding his sister's mind.   
> 10\. I get more into the different positions they find themselves in in a later chapter.


	23. Chapter 23

_“Do you remember the goal?”_

Kaval shows him how to reload the blaster’s charge pack faster. They have an empty power pack in one hand, and another empty one in the clip. This is practice. He is feeling it out, learning how this is supposed to go. How he is supposed to not only blend in but pass as one of the Eldar clan. He is feeling out the mechanics of switching out the clip as much as he is starting to feel out the new identity he is forging, the cover he’s making himself.

Iwan Eldar, originally. It felt so close to his real name, he pushed Kaval into changing the vowels. If he had to guess how he’d spell it, it would look like Ewan, instead. Something close, but unfamiliar enough it would distract anyone digging to deep.

_“Information. And capture.”_

Kaval looks him in the eye.

“You shoot to kill. Don’t go to maim – a dead problem isn’t a karking problem. If you leave them alive, they have a chance to kill _you_ instead.”

Obi-Wan nods, he puts the blaster pistol in the holster and he palms it gently to get a feel for where his hand needs to go in the event of a fight. He practices drawing it under Kaval’s watchful eye. Amilr looks up from her reading – recon information about the target of the night with some added commentary. “Straighten your back, Obi.”

She’s gentle in her correction. Kaval feels like an instructor. Like when Master Krell teaches senior padawans lightsaber forms, he is strict and exacting. He does not take error. Amilr stops looking at their practice and back down to the pad. “We sure this is the guy?”

“Yeah.” Kaval nods. “It’s the guy.”

_“We don’t want him dead until we’ve had a chance to stick him in a cell and get whatever information we can out of him. We especially don’t want his second taking over, if our intel is anything to go by.”_

Amilr grimaces. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t fit here.”

“I did the recon myself – you doubting me, ori’vod?”

“No. Just saying it’s not impossible for them to have some counterintelligence in place.” Amilr shakes her head. “You’re good, but if they’re expecting anything and you’re underprepared it’s your skins on the line.

“Your my brothers. You’re not dying because you didn’t anticipate enemy preparedness.”

Obi-Wan knows what doesn’t fit. Amilr and Kaval think this is someone involved in some extra-planetary work in the criminal arena. Obi-Wan knows, from his briefing, that he works on the drug-smuggling side of things, meaning they aren't wrong. He doesn’t work in sentients, not unless he’s blackmailing them into being drug mules.j

But his biggest business is in blackmailing Senators and working the lower levels of government to his advantage. That's what has the Jedi worried; not only has he gone under the radar for a lot longer than normal, he's working his way up in the galaxy.

_“_ _Compassion doesn’t get you much in this line of work. But mercy does.”_

Kaval chomps at the bit to get going, doesn’t appreciate Amilr’s well-placed concern for all he insists she come with.

“You need the back-up, anyway. Get your head out of your shebs.” She scowls at him.

_“No one’s first mission goes right. Failing spectacularly is pretty much a rite of passage, but that’s why we give you the easy stuff, a supervisor for when druk hits the ceiling, and tell you to learn from it._

_“Better we work your nerves out on some low-level drug-dealer that operates on the blackmail side too, than throw you straight into a Sith Temple and tell you to figure it out.”_

In the end, Amilr seems to have come just to reign in Kaval. She waits for him to get up from the booth they've been sitting in for the last half hour – antsy as ever, he mutters about using the fresher and is out of sight within a moment – to say anything.

“He doesn’t like loud. He does loud well in fights, but a city like this? I don’t expect he’s sticking around long.”

“And you?”

She shrugs. “I was born in a war-zone. Before Buir picked me up off the streets, all I knew was loud. It’s the quiet that gets me.” She shakes her head. “It only got quiet when the Hutts showed up.”

Obi-Wan says nothing to that, sipping at his water instead. He had ordered it with an off-hand about being the designated – something the barkeeper had laughed at. Truly? It’s just something to occupy awkward moments. For all they’ve been involved in a job together, he knows they haven’t properly worked together. More than that, they haven’t spent too much actual time together. A few nights drinking in the apartment and some lunches at Dex’s are hardly a strong basis for a relationship with two siblings. He and Amilr don’t know each other like Kaval and Amilr, who have ostensibly spent at least their adolescences together, do. The less said about him and Kaval, and their low-level bickering with promises of more where that came from, the better.

“He didn’t have to move here.”

“He wanted to.” She smirks, and Obi-Wan gets the feeling he’s being brought in on some sort of joke. “Besides, everyone learns eventually. Kaval doesn’t get talked out of things, not easily anyway. Especially not when they’re bad for him.”

Obi-Wan had debated offering to teach Kaval at least a bit of using the Force, but now he hesitates. There is little doubt in his mind Kaval is sensitive to it – the signs are there, if somewhat different from how they manifest in children or in people for whom the Force has not been an unrecognized battle companion. There’s irritation from what Obi-Wan would bet is some sort of precognition, there is a certain level of attunement to others for all it gets masked by a brusque and indifferent outer shell, and those are only the most obvious signs. – but he also remembers how much he was told, going back as far as he remembers, that the Force is a gift and a privilege. That Jedi, and any other sensitive, must be careful in how they handle it and interact it. For all it can do good it can do great harm.

For all it can bring great joy and peace, it can also corrupt people and draw them towards the most fleeting and dangerous of pleasures. He is not so sure that he _should_ train Kaval, that it would not come back to haunt him if he did.

He wants to believe Kaval would use it with care and consideration. And that’s not to say he wouldn’t, but Kaval is trigger-happy when things get too close. He shoots first, according to Amilr and Ruusaan, when he isn’t on a job where he can back up and take the distance shot, take his time. It’s given him a good reputation as a bounty hunter – want an unseen, distance-based assassin, he’s your man. Want to send a message, and he’s equally qualified. 

Amilr closes her hand into a fist and then opens it back up. She’s trying to pull his attention away from his mind. “Our guy just walked in.”

He’s a tall Pantoran with broad shoulders and a presence about him that has nothing to do with the Force. This is a man with power, whether through legal or illegal means he likely doesn’t care. His name is Sevari Tam and Master Ti had pointed Obi-Wan towards this mission with the intent of giving him something that is easily supervised and which his partner can back him up on if things get rough. For a given definition of rough, given he needs to be able to work missions largely alone, but it is comforting knowing Quinlan is nearby and ready if things get to far out of hand. 

_“We do things a bit differently. We are not about to leave you unsupervised, even on something simple. Our work is too sensitive; often young Knights run the risk of getting into trouble on their first missions, that is why they are given ones with low stakes. But our stakes will always be high, by the nature of our work. With that said, focus on your cover and your objective. The longer you keep cover the better, but until that moment your cover breaks we will be hands-off, but present.”_

There was also a certain level of sense to the approach – after all, some skills had to be learned practically, some things could only be explained so far before experience took over as the teacher.

Tam laughs at something his companion says. She’s a human woman and she carries herself with a dancer’s grace.

Or, he knows, a particularly well-trained fighter’s.

“That his guard?”

“One of them.” Amilr looks up and Kaval throws himself into the seat next to Obi-Wan. “I take it you saw him.”

“He’s got two more, at least. One loitering by the freshers with a nice little DC style side-arm and another over at the doors.”

“So three guards, minimum.”

“And probably more we haven’t spotted.”

Obi-Wan hums at that. “So he knows enough to watch his back. I don’t suppose that’s surprising given his line of work.”

“Maybe not,” Kaval sneers, “But it is karking annoying.”

Amilr rolls her eyes at their brother – an odd thought to Obi-Wan, but one he adjusts better to with each passing day. “Calm down. We can bash his face in later, let’s just settle for making the approach for now.”

“I have a reputation – no way is he going to let me get close.”

_“Your advantage is you're new. A non-entity, to most, and they’ll underestimate you for now. Not for long, but take advantage of it while you can.”_

Amilr leans in. “And I don’t. Not for volatility, anyway. And our beautiful brother here,” Amilr says that with a level of misplaced glee that makes Obi-Wan wonder if he’s about to be hazed, “is a complete non-entity. Brand new little Ewan Eldar, getting his footing in the exciting and dangerous world of bounty hunting.”

He is definitely being hazed. At least a little bit.

“So your plan is relying on the fact that you two don’t have a reputation?” Kaval seems skeptical.

“No. I’m telling you I plan on relying on that and the fact that our family has a notorious reputation for in-fighting.”

That was news to Obi-Wan. He makes a mental note to ask Amilr about it later; as it is, she stands and gestures for him to follow, leaving Kaval to stew behind them. He isn’t happy about this plan, Obi-Wan is quite sure, but he isn’t stopping them. If he had to guess, Obi-Wan would say this is probably the only plan they had, for now.

He makes a side note to also dig into the broader holonet, look on some of the more illicit sites, in order to find information on the Eldars and see what the rumors are.

He is here for information, after all, because information on this man is so sparing and fraught with layers of relay that it is hardly reliable. Shaak had said as much, and Quinlan had repeated it. Sentient intelligence can be the best they get, but so far from the source? They need independent verification.

_"Fresh eyes, direct on the source. You don’t know how valuable that is until it comes down to the wire and that’s all that saves you."_

Amilr sits across the booth from Tam and smiles, gesturing for Obi-Wan to take the place immediately beside her. He doesn’t want to close her in like that but acquiesces. It wouldn’t do to look too much like he has any sort of formal training; he will have to rely on his own speed to get out so she can follow. The only consolation, again, is that Quinlan is somewhere in the same bar, deep cover, to step in if things get too far gone from Obi-Wan.

“Eldar?” He gestures to the tusk-cat on their jackets. They are reinforced with light armor, barely noticeable to an untrained eye, but the tusk-cat is still laying right where a pauldron would. “Not likely to find you around here, from what I hear.”

“We’ve always had more courage than sense.” Amilr leans across the table. “I was hoping we could talk a bit privately. You know, out of the way? I had a proposition for you.”

“Does it have anything to do with him?”

Obi-Wan half expects to be the one that Tam has an issue with, that because he isn’t known that he is a problem. Instead, Tam is pointing and sneering at Kaval, who is looking about as nonchalant as he ever could; he’s scrolling on a datapad and sipping his drink. He looks like any other of a number of young professionals visiting this bar between long shifts and trying to pull themselves up under Coruscant’s weighty system. A bit of a sharper edge about him, certainly, but he does blend in. 

“Maybe.”

Tam stands, gestures for the woman to follow him, and then tells them much the same. He stops them at their original table.

“I don’t suppose you want to join us, Kaval Eldar?”

Kaval snarled and stood. “My pleasure.”

Obi-Wan hesitated at this. They weren’t supposed to be made this fast into the operation. Amilr’s comment about counterintelligence – counter-surveillance, more likely – plays out in his head. One of the first things they stressed in the training for Shadows was that they ought not assume an enemy went into anything blind.

And he had done that on Kaval’s word. That was…

It wasn’t too much trust. He was, on some level, supposed to trust Kaval as his brother and as his lead on this. But it was too much _faith_ to put into him that he would have caught any and all counter-surveillance.

“I must admit,” Tam is guiding them towards private rooms in the bar, smiling at them with all the congeniality of a man who has been hiding secrets longer than some of them may have been born, “I don’t know the redhead. You cut a good figure, I’ll give you that, but you look so _young_. For a bounty hunter, I guess that works, but I wouldn’t hire you. Look too fresh.

“Try growing out a beard before you intimidate the next guy, yeah?”

And when the door closes, Obi-Wan takes note that the other guards – the three in the building at least – have already made their way here. They were expecting something like this.

Kaval’s hand twitches to his blaster. There is little doubt Tam knows, as well as Obi-Wan and Amilr do, that Kaval is out for blood here. Obi-Wan wonders if that is why he works so heavily in the Outer Rim; he wonders if there are more jobs that grant leeway for the fight that Kaval craves. He cannot imagine him doing well in the Core, where so many of the missions Obi-Wan had done with his own Master had relied on careful planning.

Then again, even when they came in contact with illegality they were still, ostensibly, on the up-and-up, legally speaking. Perhaps Obi-Wan simply has much to learn about bounty-hunting.

“So, gentlemen and lady,” he pours a drink, then three more. Obi-Wan waves it off, and then hands it to one of Tam’s guard when the man insists. He is certainly _not_ drinking on this job. “Ah, smart move, young man. Perhaps a bit rude, but I’ll let it slide.”

Tam could be a politician, could be an executive – he has the charisma to attain legal power if he really wanted. Obi-Wan has certainly met plenty with legitimate power that are similar enough to him. That does not change, however, the circumstances under which they are meeting.

He takes note of the insinuation it was rude; he will have to take that up with Quinlan and Master Ti later on. Certainly, he knows Master Jinn would have accepted the drink.

Obi-Wan needs his head about him, though. He doesn't want to go into this next bit blinded in any sense by alcohol. Not when his nerves are already ramped up and he can feel the pressure in the room mounting. 

Tam has been watching the two of them – Obi-Wan and Kaval – while Amilr keeps the charade up that she is in this to find a job.

“Well, as much as we would be _ecstatic_ to bring a few Eldars into the fold, what with your reputation,” Tam flicks a hand towards Kaval, “current company aside, I’m afraid I have to decline. Ewan looks far too young; I don’t deal with amateurs. And you both are rather close to someone I have some rather strict ideological disagreements with.”

Kaval doesn’t wait for the others to start shooting first, and Obi-Wan has to admit it was a smart move. The blaster fire is going every which way in the room and Obi-Wan remembers.

_Information. Spare Tam, get the information. That is the priority._

He throws a fist and slips underneath an arm. He catches an elbow to the side, and another glances the side of his head. He doesn’t think there is a concussion – a glancing blow at best. He almost wants to stop, surprised at the urge to flinch from the pain, particularly from the elbow. He's been out of the field a few months recovering, he has to retrain his flinch response.

It’s a small space, he’s lucky there. He can get to Tam quickly, even as the man goes to leave the room to the chaos he and Kaval have started. He grabs the man and pins him to the wall, a vibroblade against his neck. “Call them off.”

Tam laughs. “Why would I do that? You’re going to kill me anyway.”

“Kaval would. I won’t – call them off, tell me what I want to know, and you’ll walk out of here alive.”

And Tam considers it. He even calls them off and answers some of Obi-Wan’s questions. Not who he has material on, not how he got it. But some of the questions, and that is better than nothing. 

_“I’m not answering that. I tell you too much, and what use am I alive?”_

It’s not an unfair point, given the thinks Obi-Wan is a bounty hunter, not a Jedi. He probably has little reason to think he will walk out alive; likely, he took a chance that Obi-Wan being so young meant he wouldn’t go for the kill, would be too skittish.

Whatever Tam’s reasoning for taking a shot on the promise, Obi-Wan honors his word – he does let Tam out alive. He drops him off at the Coruscant Security office, his hands bound in cuffs even though many of his associates managed to scatter. The entire drive there, however, Kaval is steaming. He waits until they’re gone to round on Obi-Wan.

“What kind of Jedi, feel-good nonsense was that? He’s got his hands in all kinds of shit, and I would be willing to bet every credit I have he’s into some kind of exploitation ring.”

“And until we have more evidence, what right do we have to kill him for it? Yes, I agree, there is reason to suspect he is exploiting people. Specifically, that he might be extorting Senators. And if we let him die without knowing who he was going after, we have no starting point.

“Is that what you want? A man like Tam has a second, you know that!”

“And that doesn’t change the fact he should be _dead_.”

“If he were dead, then we would have to dig out the next person, and the next. Where does it end, Kaval?”

Kaval opens his mouth only for Amilr to stop the speeder abruptly in front of their apartment building.

“Go home, Obi-Wan.”

He feels something chafe, emotionally. He had wanted to encourage something positive with these two.

Quinlan debriefs him later, tells him he did the right thing. In the artificial light and clean, sterile briefing room in the north-eastern sector of the Temple it all feels so distant. He wonders if that is a processing problem on his end, or if it is a normal experience. He assumes he will have to wait and find out. 

“We needed proof. His testimony isn’t much, especially given it was his life or the information, but it’s something to start on. We can get someone else to work on verifying it. I want you to take a day, then I want you reaching out to Amilr. Of those two, she’s got the level head.”

And he wasn’t wrong. He wonders what must have happened that their third sibling has never once made an appearance. Skali, he knows, is her name, but she never shows her face to them. He does take the day, takes two even which has Quinlan laughing a bit but encouraging it nonetheless.

He hadn’t anticipated how sore he would be getting into a fight. He thought himself well near recovered, but one of the healers remarks that it is likely he has gotten a bit unaccustomed to the contact aspect of fighting, having only been recently cleared for sparring and even then focused on saber practice with Anakin.

He asks Quinlan to help him with hand-to-hand on the mat. He won’t be caught by that same issue again.

When he calls Amilr at the end of the day, she doesn’t answer.

He gets a text from her, another from Ruusan.

_Give me some time, vod’ika._

_Let them be mad. They’ll get over it._

He doesn’t suppose he has much choice in the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The set up for this chapter's action and the fallout were meant to be the focus. I don't know how this is going to land, given the last several chapters have been lacking in action, but the actual fight was not meant to be much of the focus at all. This chapter may feel like filler, but it is relevant to broader plot points, I promise.  
> 2\. So I learned Ewan is properly pronounced a little closer to something like "You-an"; I love meta stuff like this so I worked it in. If it's not your cup of tea I get it, but I love it and wanted it in there.  
> 3\. I experimented a bit with the formatting, but it likely won't make any reappearances. Essentially, the dialogue you see in italics are meant (if it was unclear) to be snippets of the briefing Obi-Wan got from Quinlan on the mission he's going on.  
> 4\. Is Obi-Wan grateful Kaval pulled him out? Yes. That doesn't mean they get along.  
> 5\. On Kaval, I was worried his characterization would seem inconsistent here, so to clarify he is, certainly, a capable bounty hunter. He works well in a team, especially, and can do recon fairly well. As I hint at here, though, he doesn't do well a) in loud environments and b) when it feels like there is less control. He had some level of control of the situation on Kuat, and then he took control over what he could (see him killing the guard and lording his life over him). Here, he knows he has to play nice, he knows he doesn't have the actual power, and there is an unknown variable in Obi-Wan. This is part of why I had him working, predominately, with teams - he has more people at his back, it feels to him like more control.  
> 6\. Yes, the implication here is that Obi-Wan's covers will be bounty-hunter related for at least a while.  
> 7\. On that note, other than that one line about his advantage, and the second italicized line that reads like a response, most of them _are_ from Quinlan briefing Obi-Wan, specifically said by Quinlan.  
> 8\. The thing about human intelligence in the real world (and sentient intelligence as I call it throughout this) is that it is both the best and worst intelligence form. It can be the most detailed and accurate, or it can be the most inaccurate and the more people it comes through the less reliable it is. There are other concerns, too, relating to a human source getting turned against you and feeding you false intel, but those aren't as relevant to this chapter.  
> 9\. Obi-Wan trusting Kaval despite his training seems like a rookie error because it is. It's meant to be. He was trained as a diplomat, and while historically diplomats were also spies/spymasters in their own right, that is still an entirely different skillset. And the reason he doesn't get too much flack for it in the immediate aftermath, is it was expected he would make some of these mistakes. I figure the Shadows, as I hint at, know that some things get learned through experience. That's why they sent him on this. It's related to stuff he has experience in, but it has plenty of room for him to mess up and learn from without him being off-world or out of reach of anyone. He'll learn from the mistake when the danger is a fight (with the requisite risks associated) and frustration _with back-up nearby_ meaning he doesn't have to learn it where the risks he could get captured, tortured, ransomed, and/or killed are significantly higher.  
> 10\. Re: the beard comment. I amuse myself, what can I say.  
> 11\. Tam can still run the operation from prison (as we've seen both in the real world and presented in The Clone Wars), but more than that not killing him makes any succession harder because he's still alive. Just like Ziro the Hutt was broken out of prison in canon, it is entirely possible that Tam could try to get out on his own, too. That's my logic behind that scene, anyway.  
> 12\. The difference in response for Kaval and Amilr is kind of important because I meant it to get at one of the differences in their characters. Both are angry, and arguably rightfully so. Amilr was under no illusion that his work as a Jedi might hit some snags with their lives as bounty hunters and their culture as Mandalorians, but she is the one who starts to see that there was something else at play, that he went into this with a different goal in mind and was not forthcoming. She doesn't mind that he has different priorities, just that he was dishonest. Because of her own work, though, she recognizes the need for discretion which is why she messages him asking for time later on. She wants to process on her own first. Kaval, meanwhile, assumed Obi-Wan was on the same page as him, and saw Obi-Wan sparing Tam as a betrayal of mutual ideals. He was far more presumptuous about how Obi-wan would adjust and how his philosophy and morals would adjust in kind; beyond that, he was (as I hope I made clear) already on edge throughout the chapter. It all culminates in him having the more extreme reaction than Amilr.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we are back with Dooku again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We will get a couple chapters with Obi-Wan and Anakin here soon, with a quick Ilum arc before we get back into some of the heavy duty plot. That is to say, Ilum is plot relevant, but will be a bit of its own aside as well.

The journal is proper paper, but that is hardly surprising. It was the one luxury Sifo-Dyas would afford himself, writing on paper as opposed to flimisplast, and making sure to take down whatever detail he could remember. The futures themselves are written in a funny little code they had made as Initiates; Yan nearly laughs at how simple it is and yet, how much time he spends trying to figure out how Sifo-Dyas had coded it. Granted, time had put changes in place of things that no doubt Sifo had forgotten – time had worn away Yan’s own memory of their little code – but it is nonetheless based on that same structure. With a few hours to puzzle out where Sifo had his own gaps, he has a completed key.

It comes apart rather easily, then, but it is far from simple.

Sifo-Dyas paints a picture of war. Each future he dreams is laden in war and bloodshed and loss. And as Yan reads through it, certain names become increasingly important.

There is red paper atop specific futures. Yan does not understand, until he comes across a future he does not want to envision having come to pass. One where Qui-Gon died at the hands of the same Sith Yan’s own grandpadawan had then slain.

Yan had gotten a call, that day, informing him of Qui-Gon’s injuries. He got another one several days later informing him the Temple healers expected at least some level of recovery. In the remaining time since he has neither heard from the Temple on Qui-Gon’s status, nor has Qui-Gon seen fit to reach out.

Their letters had been getting sparser, as Qui-Gon drifted further away from him and Yan drifted further from the Order. Yan had hoped that wouldn’t stop his former Padawan from reaching out in a situation such as this.

He wonders at that, what he would have done in the wake of Qui-Gon’s death. Would he have Fallen willingly, damned the consequence? Would he have become more of a recluse than he already was? The questions were too many to consider, the possibilities all their own sort of harrowing, and Yan made to release them into the Force.

Obi-Wan had reached out, but there had been a distinct lack of information in his letter. There were pleasantries, certainly, as befitted the writing, but the information he was given was restricted to what Obi-Wan had been reading; very little was shared about his endeavors. If Yan had to guess, that meant one thing, but he stopped the thought in its tracks.

It was hardly his concern if the boy opted into covert operations instead of a life of diplomacy. One could train a padawan, they could not guarantee their path. He would not name the suspicion, on the off-chance his recurrent visitor ever took a glimpse into his mind for information. Not with the risks that would entail with what he was already planning.

Obi-Wan’s name was recurrent in the journal. As was Qui-Gon’s. And Skywalker’s. Even outside of Yan’s own lineage, the boy was still involved in these visions, extensively.

But beyond how those he cared about and, by extension, those _they_ cared about were involved, the visions were far more disturbing. Jocasta had said he saw war. She had warned him.

He looks across his desk, the journal sitting in front of him, towards Jenza. Jenza was leaning in her chair, having handed the journal back to him after he had decoded it for her.

“You have any idea what you’ve just handed to me?”

“I’ve handed you a sampling of possible futures. The future is always in motion sister, if this journal was any indication for you.”

“You have handed me a list of your death sentences. And while I trust in my son, Heran is not ready to take over for you.

“Beyond that, can you imagine what it would do to him, having to follow in your footsteps after your violent demise? After years of war? Or worse, in the midst of it?”

“Jenza,” Yan does not need to imagine. The thought has crossed his mind multiple times. “Do you think if this Sith is trying to orchestrate a galaxy-wide war we have any choice? Do you think we will be permitted to stay neutral? Any choice we make we will face accusations.

“Should we stay neutral, we will be accused of dealing arms or of dealing support to the Republic on the side, given my past. If we join the Republic, my legitimacy will come under intense scrutiny. It is no secret Serenno is suffering under the Republic, that they do not respond to our needs and concerns. 

“If we join the Separatists, there will still be scrutiny. But given it aligns best with Serenno’s interests, I doubt the scrutiny would reach too high a volume. As for our people, they would see it as a move for Serennian interests before the interests of those we ally with.”

Jenza shakes her head. “You never do anything by halves, and I know you won’t mean to leave our people behind, not after all you’ve done for them and all you've given up. But, Yan, this man is a Sith!”

“And I am in a unique position to draw him away from the Jedi Order and to prevent him from bringing harm to those within.”

“For how long? If he’s courting discontented Jedi, he already has names – how long before he decides he’s had enough of you and moves on to a younger apprentice? From what you’ve told me, he doesn’t need an old man with his own ideas, he needs someone to follow him – someone he can sway.”

Yan knows this. He knows the second he agrees his days will be numbered, and for that he must make the man stay “on the hook”, as it were, out of a sense of having invested too much time in luring Yan away. It would not buy him much in the way of time, but any days further on the lifespan he is taking the significant risk of cutting short will be more days that Heran has to learn of governance, that Jenza does not have to take up the mantle she has worked so long to keep away from.

“Would you rather a man we both suspect to hold some sway in the broader Republic _also_ have an acolyte or an Apprentice within the ranks of the Jedi?”

“Who is to say he won’t go looking anyway? Everything you tell me of the Sith, they are willing to curse and break their own rules and loyalties just for a bit more power – how do you know that he won’t still pick someone out of the Jedi to be his acolyte, or to be his ready-made replacement for you?”

“I don’t, Jenza, but I have to try.”

He can be a conduit for information, for evidence. He can prepare Serenno better from outside of the Republic’s long and overly tangled jurisprudence, make it all look above board on the front of joining the Separatists.

There is discontent in the Outer Rim, there are echoes of it moving inward. These are facts, these are things that Yan wrestles with every day and puzzles over, wonders what the best course of action is.

Serenno, in any case, must become more independent. Where the Republic tries to encourage interdependence in the guise of preventing war, Serenno must pull away from that, must establish her self-sustainability.

“I want you to start working with the universities. Find areas good for agriculture, take stock of our resources, and look for holes in our defenses.”

Jenza is a mind like few others. She is meant for planning and improving – she is the patroness that so many histories speak of when they speak of the Golden Age of the High Republic, or of various Empires from Serennian history. That he must ask her mind to turn to preparation for war and bloodshed does not please him, but it is not as though she did not see it coming. She should be able to think of the arts, and of the people and of what history will see of this era, but she will apply herself just as diligently to the task ahead, he knows.

He fears it will see a coup that warned of the war to come, but he can only hope that he will steer his planet through it.

“A good start.” She looks at the map of Serenno on the wall of Yan’s office space. Yan’s eyes are still on the journal with its myriad futures and its depressing fates. “And if none of these are the future that comes to pass?”

“Jocasta said Sifo had already acted. I don’t think she was wrong there – he has other notes on the side that I didn’t bother with that are in that vein. I need to figure out when, where, and how he has decided to act; he left several potential plans but he did not leave any indication which one he has chosen.”

“Do you intend to interfere, brother?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Sifo likely saw and knew more than he let on even in these journals. He was always…”

Paranoid. That’s what Sifo-Dyas was, in the latter years of his life. He knew what became of Seers in his Sector, he knew the history of bloodshed and war and yet as he got older, he once confided, he understood. Cassandran Seers saw so much and so frequently; often it involved suffering. At some point, they had to wonder if they could help, if telling the right person or prodding the right leader into action would stop it all.

It rarely did, and Yan worries that Sifo has fallen prey to the same trap so many like him out of the Cassandran Sector have.

“He was always?”

“Careful. Cautious. He did not trust easily, once we grew older, and he stopped talking about his visions.”

“And because he knew that there was little he could do.”

And now he saw a way to act. Or he found one. Either way, Yan is sure that Sifo-Dyas has left behind an imprint of these visions that have plagued him longer than he’s had this journal.

The first one opens _The fires started again._

The fires on the Temple, the slaughter of _younglings. Of children not even old enough to have their first lightsabers._

Yan could not let that come to pass.

He and Jenza plan into the night, quietly and secretly. They send the servants away early, prepare their own meal as time wears on.

He worries the entire time. He is out of his depth, he knows. He will not be able to do this alone, not if he is to retain himself and his purpose, his mission.

He left the Order willingly and he does not intend to return. He has to wonder if there aren’t those within that will take to him reaching out with something of a plan and a hope to distract the Sith that keeps visiting, if there are those that will see what he is asking and respond in kind.

He sleeps poorly that night, as he has many nights since the visitor started coming. He meditates, once sleep evades him fully. He has not fallen so deep into the Force since he left the Temple, but he feels the warmth of it. The calm. He wonders at that, how it is so calm here on his homeworld when he remembers how chaotic it became the longer he lived in the Temple.

Is it calm because he has brought some semblance of peace and balance to Serenno? Is it a foreboding calm? There is certainly no ill-ease he can feel within it, but the Force has obscured things before.

As he feels himself leaving meditation with the natural start of questions he ponders that. His own padawan would advise to look to the moment, to feel the Living Force around him. Yan has always been something of an all-arounder that leaned into the Unifying Force a tad more than the other two. Even so, the Living Force was just one more piece of a larger puzzle to him, one more way to commune with something that otherwise was not particularly forthcoming in any singular attribute.

He looks to the box with Qui-Gon’s letters. He supposes communication is a two-way street. If Qui-Gon will not write to him, he can at least make the gesture and write to his former apprentice. Certainly, the worst that can happen is he is ignored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. It is a private code, but one that Yan and Jocasta forgot at first and had to relearn. And that's not accounting personal touches/changes that happened naturally to the code over time.   
> 2\. I'm a big believer in lineages being kind of like families. It makes sense that if you raise someone through pre-pubescence into adulthood that they become like your child and you like their parent. Now, that doesn't mean, that there is a necessarily good relationship over time across lineages. Just like modern parental relationships, it makes sense that there would be tenuous Master-Padawan relationships.  
> 3\. Dooku doesn't die in EVERY future, but there are enough to worry Jenza. I'm not saying he dies later, but I'm not saying I've ruled it out completely either.   
> 4\. I think Jenza is very aware that Yan had a significant portion of his life on Coruscant before he came back to Serenno, and she seeks to acknowledge that he gave that huge chunk up when he moved back.   
> 5\. Yan's logic here is that if the current Apprentice is away from the Order, it will delay efforts or at least slow efforts from Sidious to poach a Jedi. He's not wrong, he just doesn't know yet who Sidious is eyeing for an apprentice. And as Jenza points out, it is not a guarantee nor will it necessarily last long at all.   
> 6\. I keep harping on this Outer Rim stuff with Dooku because it's the kind of thing, as planetary ruler of a Mid/Outer Rim world (if I recall correctly) that would be on his mind. He has to keep his people safe and broader regional discontent and disquiet does not necessarily do that.   
> 7\. My working assumptions of Republic history for this are that the current Republic works on a model like the early European Coal and Steel Coalition and early European Economic Area - economic interdependence to prevent war. But this model is intentionally warped here so that planets become what we see of Kuat and what I imply of Serenno - focused on whatever it is that gives them value to the (now corrupt) Republic that will bring them resources and attention when it is needed. To clarify, I think the EU is largely successful at what it does, though there is room for improvement. For the sake of storytelling, though, I took the historical model, played with some variables, and then used some UN-based structure to flesh it out for when I'm working with it.   
> 8\. I don't know if anyone agrees with me, but I see a lot of "fall of the Roman Empire" imagery in Clone Wars (as well as in the Prequels more broadly) and so I'm playing with that with Jenza and the idea of the people who make monuments and commission art and whatnot; I am not saying these led to the fall of the Empire, but rather that the Republic is already falling and that they are away from the time when people could think of art and beauty.   
> 9\. Canon leads us to believe that the clones were commissioned by Dooku in Sifo-Dyas' name, but I'm having Sifo-Dyas be the actual commissioner here for plot reasons.


	25. Chapter 25

Anakin is asleep in the cockpit, having wanted to watch the stars from the co-pilot’s chair while the Explora-Corps pilot taking them to Ilum had told him about the different planets he has been to and the things he has seen.

Feemor had been glad to see Obi-Wan, had commented on the rumors that made it far enough to get out of the Temple, and then had promptly looked at the little blonde boy who had, to the moment Feemor greeted his brother padawan, been chattering and introduced himself.

“So Jedi have siblings?”

“Something like it.”

Anakin had immediately turned to Quinlan who had hidden his immediate reaction well; Aayla and the catastrophe that ended their partnership was less raw than it once had been, and Obi-Wan wondered if it wasn’t doing him good to see that it truly wasn’t his fault, that he could still be a good teacher. Quinlan had mentioned Master Tholme coming back from a long mission soon, though no date was given, and that he could meet his sister padawan then.

He had been enraptured by Feemor and his tales, and by the time he fell asleep Obi-Wan had just about needled more detail out of Quinlan. He had been tense all morning.

With Anakin asleep, though, Quinlan puts a mild suggestion on him to extend said sleep. Feemor whistles low at that and turns towards them. “I’ve got the autopilot on, but if this is a private thing I can close off the cabin for you guys.”

Quinlan nods. “Thanks. Best this stays in limited circles.”

“You got it.”

The door closes and Anakin is left in the chair he fell asleep in, in the cockpit with Feemor, who will keep him entertained if the suggestion isn’t enough to keep him out through the conversation. Quinlan flops into one of the seats and looks at the comm unit in his hand with the utmost disdain.

“This has to do with Palpatine, doesn’t it.”

It’s not really a question, he doesn’t bother making it sound like one.

Once, shortly after the Naboo Crisis, was a PR stunt. It was excusable, even. It made sense that the Chancellor, who was himself from Naboo, would want to reach out to the child that had piloted a starfighter (against the express wishes of others around him) and shot down the Trade Federation ship. Obi-Wan and Quinlan had even laughed about it one night, after they were certain Anakin was asleep.

_“You didn’t see Qui-Gon’s face when he woke up and Anakin told him,” Quinlan had said. “I know you gave him a run for his money sometimes, but damn that’s the first time I think I ever saw him contemplate an early retirement.”_

No, Qui-Gon might not have kept up with Ani quite like Quinlan could. But then, Quinlan had always been a force of his own, a constant source of momentum to break the inertia of those around him.

“He called again. Wants to see Anakin.”

“And you don’t want to let him.”

“I know I’ve got nothing on him, but something isn’t right here.”

Obi-Wan agreed. Fully. “You don’t have to let him, but you do need to start coming up with better excuses. Man that powerful will find a way to get what he wants eventually.”

Quinlan huffs a half-hearted laugh at him. “Force, we’re really getting that paranoia into recruits fast. It’s been what, six months?”

“Nearly nine, Quin. Time doesn’t stop just because you leave the Temple.” Obi-Wan can feel the smile, and he shoves Quinlan lightly at that. He’s been responsible for Anakin a few times while Quinlan was sent on shorter missions that still needed his psychometry, an experienced Shadow, or both. It was fun, but Obi-Wan is certainly glad he doesn’t have a full-time Padawan yet. He doesn’t know how he would handle it, being so new to being a Knight while teaching.

“Can’t ever tell with you. Might trip and fall into a carbonite freezer.”

“That never happened.” Obi-Wan scowls. “And I’m not that clumsy anymore.”

Everyone was clumsy at fourteen and fifteen. Obi-Wan would fight and die on that hill, and he would do his damned best to drag Quinlan down with him.

Quinlan turns the comm in his hand. “What are we going to do?”

“Start broad. He wants access to Anakin, and we want to prevent that. Obviously, we can use training as an excuse, and within the next year you both will be out of the Temple periodically on missions.

“Beyond that, he might try to go through the Relations Committee to get access. If he does that, we might have more Padawans meeting senators at younger ages as some sort of ‘governance education initiative’. The SLEOC might get involved, but that would be if he calls for an investigation of mistreatment.” Obi-Wan has never been more glad for all the nights spent memorizing the political field of Coruscant for various missions he had with Master Jinn. It was benefiting him, just now. “They wouldn’t push for him to be allowed to see Anakin, he has no claim. He is neither a concerned sponsor nor a parent looking into contacting their child.”

A sponsor, though rare, had happened before. Force sensitive children not looking to become Jedi, instead being trained with the hopes (or for a future of coercion, a cynical part of his mind whispered) they would serve their home planets would be sponsored through that planet’s senator. Going to the Jedi would give them the grounding and training for that without requiring them to stay on as Jedi or be remanded to the Corps at thirteen; instead there would be a limited selection of classes as they got older and they would spend more time in the Senate Rotunda than they would at the Temple.

Obi-Wan rubs a hand along his face. “I can’t think of much else he could do, right now. Still, we have the broad strokes of what he might be planning, and we can try to cut those off at the pass once we get back. You have at least a few days, right now, that he is out of reach.”

“We could switch comms.”

“What?”

“Switch comms. You take mine, I take yours. Switch out the codes we need and then when he calls he gets you. No way he knows you live with us – most Jedi don’t pay enough attention to notice Shadows live in slightly larger groups. Tell him we got them mixed up on assignment and you haven't been able to get it back to me.”

It has some merit. Obi-Wan considers it but makes no promises. “When we get back to Coruscant, we can look at that option more.”

They work quietly after that, both stewing in the problem a bit while they direct their focus elsewhere, until Feemor comes in nearly three hours later, carrying a still sleeping Anakin. “Remind me never to get on the bad side of a Shadow, if that’s what you call ‘mild’. Kid’s been dead to the world for hours.”

“He did have lightsaber training shortly before we left.”

“Poor kid – I remember seeing what you were like when you were a padawan, Kenobi.” Feemor ruffles his hair, and Obi-Wan smirks at that. Before he had moved out towards the Explora-corps, Feemor had taught some lightsaber form classes to padawan cohorts, including Obi-Wan's own. “Working yourself so hard because you were convinced you could. Took ages for anyone to convince you to walk it back a bit.”

A problem many teenage padawans had, he was later told, in trying to prove themselves to anyone and everyone. Part of growing up, some Masters said, and one that eventually they grew out of.

“I did not work him that hard in training.”

“That’s my job.” Quinlan raises a hand. “I’m the one that gets stuck dealing with it if he’s bouncing off the walls later.”

Feemor laughs at that and settles Anakin on a different seat. “Well, if you have it in your heart to get rid of that little suggestion and let him wake up, I’m making a meal.”

A meal was a generous term for what they were afforded for space travel, but Anakin (and Obi-Wan and Quinlan) did need to eat. Obi-Wan attempts to break the working-tension that was still in the room. “I almost doubt you’ll need it. Even if it’s ration bars, I think the smell will wake him up on its own.”

The meal is quiet, and Anakin talks a bit about his latest projects. All Obi-Wan can think is that if they really have no other choice, then they must find ways to make sure that Palpatine is not meeting Anakin privately; must make sure that Anakin is protected from whatever it is a powerful politician might be seeking from a ten-year-old Padawan.

Certainly, it has every possibility of being sinister and harmful. But there is also equal chance that the man wants insider information into the Jedi Order – how better to get that than to befriend a padawan without years of subtle training in operational security? Who would see it as sharing information with an ally, not with a partner organization?

The two are very different – allies share information and work towards shared goals, partner organizations do not always share their agendas and are not always working to the benefit of both parties. Alliances dissolve, and certainly that can cause warfare, but partnerships of this nature, Obi-Wan has learned, have a tendency to end in blood or a distant, fraught peace, often with little in between. With how close the Jedi are being pulled towards the Senate, the amount of misinformation on the Order, and the power people know the Jedi wield he is leaning towards the former.

Until Anakin knows and understands why secrecy is paramount, why trust is fragile and often should be hard-won, they must tread carefully with the Chancellor.

Ilum comes into view shortly after their meal, and Anakin starts getting excited once more. He pauses. “I go in alone, don’t I?”

Obi-Wan and Quinlan share a look and Feemor chuckles low at it. No doubt, Obi-Wan will deal with some private teasing from his brother padawan after all this is over.

He is grateful, certainly, that Feemor reached out behind Qui-Gon’s back to give Obi-Wan someone to talk to that was not in any way a teacher or authority figure when he was a padawan. That Feemor didn’t hold Qui-Gon’s repudiation of him against Obi-Wan. Sometimes, though, he wonders why he was so surprised about Kaval and Amilr’s tendency towards teasing when he deals with it from Feemor. He knows part of it comes from that self-same history; writing feels stilted, and Feemor was trying to be discreet and keep Qui-Gon out of it - rather difficult if letters were being delivered to Obi-Wan that were from Feemor. They are in the same lineage, yes, but they do not know one another. Not well, at any rate. He knows more about Kaval and Amilr than he does Feemor. And half of what he knows of Feemor came from rumor.

Anakin looks between Obi-Wan and Quinlan, still looking for an answer.

It’s not traditional, but neither of them are particularly traditional. That must be Quinlan’s thinking when he says, “One of us can go in with you, if you’d like, but not the whole way. At some point, you will separate from us – the Force will guide you in that.”

Anakin nods and looks at Obi-Wan. “Would you go with me?”

Quinlan raises a brow. Certainly, Obi-Wan would not have expected this turn of events. “Yes, Anakin. I would be honored to go with you.”

“Hasn’t Shaak been getting on you to make a back-up anyway?” Quinlan is lounging back on his seat - he seems amused at this development. 

“Or a shoto. To have a spare weapon, should I be disarmed.”

It isn’t a bad strategy. And given the point of his job is to have as little information about him publicly available as possible, he could even keep the spare on him should he have to surrender weapons, given he makes it with the right materials to obscure it from at least some forms of scanners.

He will investigate that, too, once he is back at the Temple.

Anakin grabs his hand as they approach the caves. “I don’t like it, Obi-Wan.”

The caves are meant to be intimidating. Certainly, they are not Dark. They would not risk bringing younglings and padawans here if that were the case. But it is foreboding; it promises challenge. More than that, it promises turmoil. The point of Ilum, from his understanding, is to push younglings and padawans into understanding the Force better. More than that, to understand the need for cleaving to the Light as the Jedi do.

There are some things that, while teachable, are best learned from experience. And that includes the dangers of being sensitive to the Force.

Obi-Wan squeezes Anakin’s hand, acknowledges in some small way that he feels it too, even knowing what was involved in it. Knowing what was coming.

“You’ll do fine, Ani. Trust in the Force.”

Anakin nods. A few meters in, they come to a splitting of paths and Anakin lets go of his hand to the left-hand path.

Obi-Wan takes the center path. There is little light down that path, from what he can see. Something that entranced him about Ilum the first time he came was the way the light from the entrance of the caves seemed to go so far down, reflecting down and through the kyber crystals as a way to light the way of the Jedi that sought their crystals there.

And here he takes a path that takes little of that light on its own. As he prepares to go, Anakin stops. He is only a few meters down his own path. “You’ll be here when I get back, right?”

“I’ll be waiting right here for you, Anakin.”

He has his own crystal to get, but he doesn’t anticipate it taking too long at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Overall, this was meant to be a little bit lighter than the last couple chapters. It's not necessarily filler, per say, but it was definitely meant to be a bit of a break in the tension.   
> 2\. I did not introduce Feemor for no reason, it's just going to be a hot minute before he becomes more actively involved plot-wise. I have the headcanon that while they didn't necessarily know each other or interact with one another because Feemor was respecting Qui-Gon's wishes and genuinely hurt being repudiated, they would probably have gotten along if and when they interacted as adults. Obviously we don't know much about Feemor, he's rather a blank slate for that, but I 1) needed another character and 2) wanted him in there somehow.   
> 3\. Aayla and Quinlan will have their moment of reconciliation, as I've discussed with people in the comments. But given she's been gone from the Temple much of this story, there hasn't been that moment yet and I figure it makes sense for Quinlan to still be somewhat sensitive about it.   
> 4\. I understand the fanon take that Obi-Wan "should have done more" to protect Anakin from Palpatine, but the thing is people in that kind of power tend to have a lot of sway and ways of using that power to get what they want. I tend towards the school of thought that even though Obi-Wan likely noticed and _wanted_ to do something about it, his hands were likely often tied.   
> 5\. The thing about the Relations Committee and a governance education initiative - Palpatine couldn't just use the RC to get to a padawan of his choosing, but Obi-Wan is thinking like he is in that seat of power, and a GEI is what he thinks of that would be a way to gain access.   
> 6\. I have a hard time believing the Jedi have every Force sensitive, so this sponsorship thing was my way of considering what alternative paths they might have outside of the Jedi, the Nightsisters (which looks to be pretty Dathomir specific) or the Sith.  
> 7\. Is Quinlan's comm-switching plan simplistic? Yes. But that's why it would be effective - fewer moving parts. It mostly comes down to "How convincingly can you pull this off" and sentient error... yeah. Comms could get mixed up.   
> 8\. I headcanon that Obi-Wan was a student that had to learn to walk it back a bit and not dedicate everything to his studies. I think we all know people like that, and I think it fits for the somewhat more curious and studious nature we see, particularly in Clone. As also stated in text, I think this would be a problem that is seen a lot in padawans, given they're in the midst of adolescence.   
> 9\. MORE ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY. I love my major, can you tell? Orgs will work together, but will seek to preserve their agendas, is how the theory goes, and in the instances of something like the Senate and the Jedi I could absolutely see internal machinations for inter-organizational espionage, even though they're allied. And given the Shadows are the covert branch? Trust is not something that gets handed out outside the organization very easily.   
> 10\. Would it make a bit more sense for Anakin to ask his Master? Maybe, but Obi-Wan is way more in the "big brother" role now that he is living with them but not his direct Master. Add that to what I've already tried to establish of their dynamic and relationship and it felt right to have Anakin ask Obi-Wan to go in with him. Note, next chapter is the really long one I was talking about, and that will be Anakin's Ilum vision.   
> 11\. "A spare weapon should I be disarmed" - a _hidden_ spare weaponl. This would not be a weapon he advertises having, but one that he keeps with him nonetheless. "Surrender your weapon, but go nowhere unarmed" is a line I've been holding in my back-pocket for some of the Shadow training one-shots I'm playing around with. I have to imagine the Shadows would be far more judicious about attaching so much significance to a lightsaber (re: the "this weapon is your life" rhetoric) given their jobs.
> 
> So I'm on the fence about a narrative choice and am willing to take into account reader opinion. It could be interesting as we get closer to some of these events to include some Palpatine perspective, but I'm trying to keep this work a bit more in the dark about it, given none of the characters know Palpatine is the Sith, nor do they know what he's planning. Would anyone be interested, as part of some of these side stories, in a set of "one-shots" as their own separate work that are some of these events (though mostly later events, as he becomes more directly involved in the plot) from Palpatine's perspective?


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mid to late 31 BBY (if anyone has this in the prequel-era calendar, I would appreciate that; I'll likely still use BBY as my standard but I would appreciate being able to reference the year in the story if needed). 
> 
> Some homebrew Tatooine mythology in this one. 
> 
> Also, for anyone interested in Breha's ascent to the throne of Alderaan mentioned in Chapter 2, if you go [here](), the first chapter is posted. Updates are on Mondays, to bookend the week. The alternate POV chapters will probably go out the same day as their respective chapters, if not the next day and will be [here]() in the series folder. You can subscribe to the series or you can just check back regularly to see if a chapter you like got an alternate POV. 
> 
> If any of you are looking for something to listen to in the background (though normally I don't include a link to anything), I did enjoy listening to this when working on parts of this chapter [x]() and music like it. Nice and calm but sets a good mood, in my opinion.

Tatooine has two religions. The Hutts brought their own, and it was one of the dominant religions in Mos Eisley, certainly, thanks to Gardulla. And others on the planet brought theirs, though they tended to be smaller in practice.

And then there was the slave religion. The stories Anakin grew up hearing from his mother, from the old women in the quarters. And some – the stories of the War of Sands and Winds, especially – that the men would whisper. The war between soldier and mercenary that tore the Twins and the Daughter from their Mother and set them against one another. The war that sentenced the twins to burn through time and the Daughter to become cold-hearted towards all those she glimpsed in her dominion of the desert night.

The cold of the desert at midnight could never compare to the cold of Ilum, though. Not with the harsh winds and the bite of the ice that flurries around and tries to cut through the skin on Anakin’s face. He had thought it was snow – was excited, even, to see snow for the first time – until he realized that this wasn’t the soft fluff he had heard stories about from the travelers coming through Watto’s shop.

Nothing about Ilum was meant to be easy, it seemed. He remembers, as he walks down the narrow cavern paths, that Obi-Wan once said the path of a Jedi was simple, not easy. He had spent an hour debating it with Anakin, who was tired and frustrated by the time Quinlan found them. Quinlan had merely rolled his eyes and told Anakin he was more than welcome, at any time, to tell Obi-Wan to shut up if he got on philosophy.

He likes Quinlan, and he likes Obi-Wan. He knows that. He’s glad, though, that both are teaching him in near equal measure. He wonders at what would have happened if it were one or the other; he imagines it would have been much harder to work with and around.

“I’m glad you’re pleased, Desert Child.”

The woman sitting to the side of the cavern couldn’t have been there earlier. The passages were so narrow – Anakin would have seen her.

Even sitting, she is tall. Proud. She has sun-darkened skin and hair tied up much like his mother tied hers. Practically, to keep it from blowing in her face when the winds picked up. She wears the clothes of the average Tatooine human. He gets the sense that if he were another species, she would have appeared as the same. This woman, she has a youth about her face that he knows the spacers and travelers called a Siren’s song, a name from old tales when people sailed actual seas before they sailed the skies and the stars. Her voice, he knows, would sound lovely singing. It is low and smooth, unhindered by needing to breathe.

Because she is a goddess. She does not need to breathe.

He is looking at the Mother.

In the stories, the women talk of losing children and how the worst pain is when one loses them and they are within reach. When they can see the harm wrought and cannot do anything. Anakin imagines it is not unlike when he gets frustrated with a problem he _should_ be able to solve, but knows he cannot.

The Mother stands and she is taller than he anticipated. She towers over him, much like a goddess arguably should. She walks towards him, as narrow as the path is and as short a distance ahead as she is, and she crouches in front of him. “You are a long way from home, Anakin Skywalker.”

As she speaks it feels as though she brings the heat of the desert sands with her voice and a rain of fire with her gaze. He feels judged, though he knows what any slave would say in response. What he knows to say in response, even as a Freed person.

“Home is your people.”

“And you left one of yours behind.”

It is a simple fact and an indictment all the same that sparks that same anger in him that he has been working so hard to swallow, knowing sure as anything that there is every chance his mother could die in those same desert sands. The heat seems to intensify and now he could swear the snow is _becoming_ sands and he wants to curse.

He has not been properly warm for a long while. He has adjusted a bit to Coruscanti temperatures and knows, now, how to layer up, but he will always think of warm as the feeling of heat under your skin. He forgot, though, that it came with a side of frustration and heat-hazed mind.

“I didn’t want to.”

“You had to, then? Would she be proud of what you’ve done in this year?”

“She wanted… She didn’t want me to have that life.”

“And she can have it?”

He feels the anger spiking hotter, hot as the flames that are now definitely burning around him – where had they _come from?_ – and he does his best to swallow it. The stories said the Mother was exacting, but ultimately kind. He has only seen the former, has yet to see any evidence to the latter.

“You think I want her to live in slavery? That I wouldn’t do anything to go back and make sure she’s safe, that someone is watching out for her?”

He wants to talk to Quinlan about this, but he knows that Quinlan’s answer will be that he can do something about it _after_ he is more capable. Obi-Wan will likely say the same, for all Anakin wants to believe, somewhere, that he empathizes. After all, _he_ has a mother, now. Shouldn’t he understand where Anakin is coming from?

It only fuels the anger, which seems to only fuel…

His anger is fueling the fire. He tries to breathe through it like Quinlan had taught him. To breathe through the anger, acknowledge it, and release it.

The fires die down, the heat pulls away a bit. He is still sweating, but he can feel it.

The Mother stills as she watches him. “You would see her watched over, child of the Sands?”

There is so much there for Anakin, and it all comes down to two things.

Yes, he does want someone watching over his mother. He wants to know that she is safe, that she won’t be dead if and when he can get back to Tatooine and pull her from slavery himself. He would do almost anything to get her out from under Watto’s ownership, and even Anakin can admit that Watto was not nearly so bad as other masters. It’s the principle, it’s that his mother is _his mother_ and as much as he hates slavery on its own it is far worse knowing he is free and she is not.

But beyond than that, the Mother called him a child of the Sands, of the soldier, and he knows in his bones what a curse that is. Had he been born Free, perhaps that would be different, but when war took over the harsh dunes and war-cries sang out from the brutal Winds, slaves were almost always the first ones to bleed into the Sands on the orders of their masters.

The Sands, in the myths, was the soldier who stood with and trained the Twins. He was the one who, when the Winds, the mercenary, took their sister under their wing and corrupted her, drove them to fight her and set them all on the paths they now had as suns and moons. He is as responsible, some say, as the Winds. He pushed them towards their hurt and anger, taught them to use it to push through the fight and it set them on fire in the end. They burn hot and they dried out the land and their heat threatens to kill the people.

It is a terrible thing, being born a slave. He knows the old women of Mos Espa would have said it was an arguably worse one to be a slave born of the Sands.

“I’m afraid I am merely your warning. You seek your kyber crystal, and you shall have it.

“But we were never going to make it easy for you.”

Obi-Wan told him to trust in the Force. When he reaches for it, the heat around him feels so much more intense. He would swear the previously dry cave floor is becoming far softer than it had been before. The ice seems to disappear as he walks. The Mother walks alongside him in silence, leaving only the mournful song of what must be his kyber crystal to fill the void of silence. It is a slaves’ ballad he knows well; they sing it at every funeral, and at every auction. He has known the words longer than he has known what it was to be a slave, and it aches to hear his kyber sing something so miserable.

As they go, the light becomes so much more intense. On one half of the room it is bright enough to show him…

Show him dark red water. He does not know what to make of that. The bright bleeds into the other half, but the other half seems to be a softer light than this, and not nearly so bright even for all it holds its own against the half permitting him to see the water.

The water that is pungent in its smell. It smells like bodies left out in the sun.

The heat must be getting to his head. He stares into it until the Mother rests a hand on his shoulder. “I will watch over her.

“As for you, Skywalker, son of Sands, you must walk your own path. I will not follow, nor will I turn my eye towards it. You serve new gods now.”

He walks to the sound of a slaves’ mourning ballad. One he knows, deep in himself, his mother sang for him. Watto would not claim to have lost him in a bad dice roll – no master wants that in their public image if they aren’t Gardulla with her immense power and wealth behind her – and his mother would see it as a protection. Slavers would not seek him out if he was dead. He would have some protection, even with the slaves' name Skywalker, by being dead to the slavers of Tatooine.

The room of the caverns he reaches has three people in it. Two seem to glow out in the Force as much as their skin glows with the kind of sun-brushed, sweat-drenched fever that he remembers from the desert he spent so many years in. One is taller, broader, more traditionally masculine. He towers over Anakin, stands on the sand in the center of the room – paler than the golden sands of Tatooine. No, this reminds him of the marble around the temple or the ice of Ilum with how pale this sand is. He knows, though, implicitly (through the Force, he wonders, or through intuition?) that should he touch it, it would be coarser than the sands he grew up on. 

That is a tall order, but he knows it would be true. On the edges of the red-river it stains like blood on cloth. 

The shorter of the two bright ones smiles at him, breaks his stare with the woman of the group. He beckons him forward, and fire seems to drip from his form as easily as sweat is starting to drip from Anakin’s own brow. He wants to turn around, would claw his way through the hottest sands to be away from these two and this woman.

It strikes him, when he sees the pale woman with wide, horror-struck eyes dripping cold, blue-grey tears turns to him. Her hair is draconic in its hold. It is reared back for battle, just as her clothes are covered by armor of hardened steel and blooded with as physical of blood as they are with an impression in the Force. There is suffering in all of her, and he thinks to one of Master Yoda’s favorite phrases – anger, hate, fear, suffering. The Path to the Dark Side.

This woman is the Dark Side, she must be. He trembles at that, because she looks so miserable. She looks like the slaves he met whose families were sold far away – she is cut away from whatever good was there for her before.

The Twins and the Daughter. That is who he looks upon now. These three are the last of the familial unit that makes up Tatooine’s principal deities. The Sands is nowhere to be seen, but Anakin supposes he needs not be when he trained the Twins so well as to best their sister and banish her into the realm of the night. To chase her away from the battlefield and banish her for what harm she had done in the war she waged.

She walks the sands at night, freezing the air in her shame and dripping nightmares onto those she passes, visions on those few that she herself has decided deserve or need them. Anakin has wondered at the visions Obi-Wan gets; has been jealous in the past year, wondering what this “Chosen One” thing meant and if visions could clarify that for him. But now he wonders how he could have craved such a thing, knowing they come from this woman.

This woman who, in her search for atonement, makes the desert just as dangerous, if not more so, during the hours the slaves are supposed to be sleeping, when they cannot defend themselves. This woman who drops dreams and visions on those with so little power.

He knows she can and does visit upon the slave masters, but they do not know her, do not recognize her when they have their own gods to honor. Anakin wondered at that as a child – how did they not see the role of the Tatooine gods in their lives when they lived there? – but now he thinks he understands.

The Children of the Mother are as brutal as the Desert itself, and for one not born and raised to appreciate the dangers of such a place it must be truly terrifying to bare witness to. From the safety of their homes, they must look out on it and see only unpredictable, unreasonable nature. 

The Mother looks to her three children and sighs. “You know what you are to do – do not let me down again.”

The Children watch with Anakin as she leaves them – quite literally disappears from the spot, though Anakin wonders if his surprise is more a mark of his humanity than anything else. Her Children certainly do not seem bothered by this occurrence.

The Daughter raises a brow at Anakin. “You would have been safe in my domain.”

It feels like compliment and insult all at once. Safe – did she not deem him worthy of visions, then? And safe – he had been a slave.

He says as much. She narrows her eyes. “And there are those slaves that see my dominion as refuge, if you had forgotten.”

She is not wrong. There are slaves prone to outburst that fall into the night. Slowly, and then all at once his mother said. They act "right" long enough for masters to take their eyes off of them and then they disappear into the night. They steal and sell things, they wander the streets, or they sell violence to the highest bidder. 

Or their bodies, but his mother tried to keep him from finding out about that. He had dreamed, in his earliest years, of being one of those slaves that sold violence, that sought to fight back against the slavers and make money while doing it. Then one of the older women of the slaves’ area set him straight on what would happen if he wasn’t careful and he wondered if the night was really so safe after all, even for those with a temper.

The heat is still oppressive here. The smell is stronger, and the river seems to be roiling around him, bubbling around and tossing the smell further towards him.

He wonders at the violence. At those who sell it. He has been told he is not allowed to meet Obi-Wan’s siblings until he is older, but he has seen their faces for all Quinlan and Obi-Wan don’t know Master Ti took him with her yet. He knows a bounty hunter when he sees one, and while it is a somewhat generous term for what is done on Tatooine, it still fits.

He remembers the stories the spacers told; bounty hunters live and die by reputation and by capability. It is important, it attracts work, it makes their mark on the galaxy, for good or ill.

He knows the slaves that disappear into the night (that must find some way around the chip, for all his mind cannot summon a possibility to latch onto) rely on their faces being as replaceable with the next slave as possible. That is why some spend months – years, even – fading into the background, biting back their temper.

There is plenty of work for those that are not well-known, that are not attached to any method of murder. He never asks, because there is too much else to worry on and those that could answer always know more than they let on. And always tell a child less than they ought, if Anakin was the one asked.

The Daughter shakes her head. “You shouldn’t have _left_ , child.”

“He is one of ours, Sister.” The Tall One speaks low and with the ease of someone assured of their victory in battle. They say, in Mos Espa, that the Twins and the Daughter fight a war in the skies as long as the moon rises as the suns fall. That they spare the people of Tatooine worse harm, by keeping their battles off the ground. “You may have sought to claim him for the Winds, but you know sure as we dog your footsteps – he _is one of ours._ ”

One of the Twins’ or one of the Soldier’s, it is impossible to tell. His homeworld is one of mysticism and desert-heat. Of visions brought on in the cold night and forgotten in the grueling labor of the day, remembered only when needed.

His homeworld is considered simple, to the Republic. It is anything but, and he is being given a crashing reminder just how far from simple it is, even as the dark red waters, though thicker than any water has right to be, continue to roil and the heat continues to rise. The Twins and the Daughter are mounting for a fight, and Anakin can feel his own anger starting to goad him just as his own powerlessness reminds him that he is nothing against literal gods.

He pulls on the Force – Quinlan and Obi-Wan had told him to trust it, right? He trusts that it will obey his commands – and the heat seems to rise even faster and to fall in on him and choke him just as the Children pause and watch him.

“That Force of yours really doesn’t like when you order it around, kid.” The Shorter looks at him, skepticism throughout his whole face like the skepticism he sees on so many of the teachers at the Temple.

“Why are you even here?”

Why are they laying claim to him as though he is still property? Why are they talking about him like he isn’t even there, saying things even Anakin, human as he is, knows aren’t true?

The Daughter could stake a claim all she wanted, but the Winds was her final decision-maker and the Winds would never take someone who called the attention that Anakin did. A human pod-racer drew attention. _Anakin_ , with all his fire and ferocity, drew attention. It didn’t matter how hard he tried not to, he did.

There were few truths in his life. His mother loved him, he was more than a slave, and he attracted attention.

There were new truths he was learning. Obi-Wan is an incredibly hard dueling teacher, but incredibly gentle when Anakin remembered to talk to him about his concerns. Quinlan cares more than he is supposed to, and he sees Anakin as one of his little pack. They are as loth-wolves in their little apartment, though Anakin knows better to point it out. They are close-knit and will rely on one another as long as they are teamed together as they are.

There are new truths he is still accepting. He is no longer a slave, and there are people besides his mother who want to look out for his well-being.

He takes a breath. He considers what was said – the Force was not responding to him like he wanted, but he was commanding it like a master would. The heat becomes secondary to him as he sighs again.

He pulls on it once more, this time just to guide him. He can still hear that ballad under everything. Under the sound of the river around their little islet blistering and blustering, and he can hear the Children bickering still.

“Why are you here?”

The Taller looks to him. “Because you are one of the Sands’. And you are one of ours, for all you left our planet behind. Tatooine never fully leaves you, your mother surely taught you that much, Anakin Skywalker.”

Skywalker. A slave-name, but one that spoke to the freedom sought past the suns and the moon and their war that blistered the ground and dried out the water of the planet so long ago.

The Daughter meets his eyes and he sees the cracks at the corner of her own. She may weep nightmares and drop visions, but the corners of her eyes bleed from the strain, leaking her own blood and her own suffering into everything she touches.

No wonder the desert night was so deceptively cruel.

“You are free now. Son of my enemy, you are not meant to follow as a soldier does. Mercenaries live free, child.”

“I’m a Jedi.”

“Another type of mercenary.”

The Shorter chucks a small pebble into the boiling red river, and Anakin watches it dissolve even as he hears the Shorter say, “Only from a very narrow perspective.”

The islet starts extending, though Anakin wonders if one of the Twins isn’t burning and evaporating out the moisture from that section of the river to allow Anakin to pass.

When they finally allow Anakin to pass. They still block his path.

“I’m not a mercenary.”

The Daughter shakes her head. The Twins look between them. “You are a child of the Sands. No matter what you claim to be, you will know war, Child.”

And that is the crux of the problem. The Daughter seems unsatisfied, the Twins disgruntled. They burn out in front of him, leaving him only that path, while the Daughter makes the room go cold, if only for a moment, in her own disappearing act.

He walks ever so slow. His anger has not abated, but he continues to hold it as tightly as he can.

He knows he has felt anger off Obi-Wan and Quinlan before, but he doesn’t know how they handle it so well. He does not know how to ask, either, for something so personal.

There is a figure on the next islet. There is a crystal that is just beyond his reach, even if he stands on the edge of the islet. The river still roils and moves, but the air is heavy here, humid and suffocating like Naboo was.

As lovely as the planet was, Anakin would prefer the dry heat of the desert to the choking humidity of Naboo any day.

The figure is tall, taller than Anakin, and they are well armored. It is old armor, but Anakin knows, sure as he knows so many truths that have never been _told_ to him, that the armor will hold against attack.

The only thing between Anakin and his kyber crystal is this person. This individual, whose sneer comes through the opening toward the bottom of their helmet. Whose sweat and calm makes them more intimidating in this hot-humid swamp of a room, with its red water and pungent smell. His anger has been festering under the surface, but the heat is exhausting. The humidity drains him.

But seeing this figure stare down at him, he feels that anger rekindle.

“A freed soldier is just a mercenary, child. Join me.”

 _Trust in the Force,_ Obi-Wan and Quinlan had said. Well the Force has some strong opinions on the person in front of him.

The Winds. If he has seen the Mother, the Twins, and the Daughter, if he has been called a child of the Sands, then that leaves one myth unaccounted for.

In the back of his mind, a stray thought reminds him that maybe Quinlan’s situational awareness exercises are helping. And maybe Master Ti’s work with him on deduction and reasoning are, too, if he can put all that together mid-vision.

The Winds, who has told him to join them as a mercenary.

Mercenaries and “freedom fighters”, some masters say, are one and the same. All they want is chaos and bloodshed, the masters say. They call them freedom freighters, and tell the slaves that they will turn on them in a second without a second thought.

Mercenaries, Anakin knows, will absolutely sell out slaves. At least, some of them will, and it’s not worth it to risk that you found one of the good ones. No slave trusts a mercenary, even without the masters' warnings. He’s known ones who have worked with them – the ones that run with the Winds under the Daughter’s watch have stories to tell when they sneak back into the settlements to help sneak others out – but they all speak the same warning.

Bounty hunter, mercenary, whatever they call themselves, they are not to be trusted.

He is free, he is the son of a soldier in an organization of peacekeepers. He is not bound to them, Quinlan has made that clear. If he ever wants to leave he is welcome to, and Quinlan has promised to keep an eye on him, to help him in any way he can should he decide to leave.

He’s overheard conversations he thinks he wasn’t meant to. Obi-Wan has left the Order behind, though Anakin doesn’t know the details and doesn’t know that he wants to go digging and has said he would follow Anakin if that was what he wanted. That he wouldn’t leave him alone in the galaxy.

Anakin has never had a father, and distantly he knows that Quinlan and Obi-Wan are very much how he imagined it might have been to have one.

He is free, but he is not alone. He is not wandering the galaxy for the barest scrap of work to feed himself, willing to set aside whatever principles he might have in exchange for watching his own back. He has others to watch his back until he learns to do it, he has people who are helping him and providing for him. He is no mercenary, just as he is no slave.

Of the two, he wonders, which is worse. Slavery is grueling and terrible, but mercenary work must be lonely. And Anakin has never liked being alone.

“Child?”

“No.”

Anakin dodges the blow that comes towards him. He cannot sense the oncoming movement in the Force like he can in the Temple; he has been told before that he should not enjoy fighting so much. He enjoys it, though, even now, because it is in many ways honest. People so rarely are.

There is an honesty to the pain just as there is an honesty in the clear division between the Winds as aggressor and opponent and Anakin as defender. Just as there is clear dichotomy between Sith and their chaos and the Jedi with the seemingly unreachable serenity.

He realizes, moments in, however, as he exhausts that this fight will only keep going if he lets it.

 _If_ he lets it.

He does not intend to let it go on, but he is outmatched and tiring. He came here for one thing. If he can grab the crystal and leave, run from the fight he can’t win, then he has a shot at making it out of here.

The heat is mounting, but he breathes through it. Forces himself to calm down enough to keep his eyes on his opponent and his mind on his objective. It is the most instructive moment he has had yet, and he manages a swift dodge under the Winds’ guard and grabs for the crystal, making it out through the same path. The waters are boiling, the land seems to steam, and he is choking on the humidity. The Winds laughs.

“You may be the Sands by blood, Child, but you are mine by nature!”

He doesn’t know what to think or how to feel about that, but when he returns to the point where the paths converge the air is bitter cold again, and he is aware of the weight of his coat again. He looks down the path.

There is no thick, red water. There is no mocking mercenary or angry god behind him.

His crystal sings a quiet history to him, one of triumph. It is warm in his hands, warm through his glove, and the only warm thing he has to hold onto as he turns to look for Obi-Wan.

They told him to trust in the Force, and the Force seems to be telling him that Obi-Wan has not left the caverns yet. He is vaguely there, mixed in with everything else these caverns offer, but hard if not impossible to reach.

Anakin sits down, kyber in his hands. Obi-Wan promised to wait for him. It’s only fair Anakin do the same, even if the meditation is still hard to get into, hard to maintain.

He finds himself, more than once, humming the same tune the kyber sings to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I like the headcanon that Tatooine slave culture is matriarchal, but it also makes sense that Anakin would have been exposed more to women, as his mother likely would have left him with other women when she had to. As for some of these myths, I have a document open for it, and I'm willing to start posting some Tatooine myths up as I make them up on a separate work for anyone interested.  
> 2\. Quinlan is absolutely an intelligent character - you would have to be to do his work. But intelligence doesn't mean he is as inclined towards the same pursuits as Obi-Wan, and it makes sense that when there is something he and Anakin mutually are not interested in he would remind Anakin he does not have to engage in conversation about it.  
> 3\. This is a mythology heavy chapter, and I figured if there are angels in Star Wars why wouldn't there be sirens?  
> 4\. I am not comparing losing a child to being frustrated, but it makes sense that a ten-year-old _would_ , because they still have some limits on what they've experienced so far.  
> 5\. I'm still going to work Shmi's freedom into this, but it might have to be a separate story because working it into the main narrative is proving rather difficult, given where the main narrative is headed and how many things are already going on.  
> 6\. Obi-Wan and Quinlan do empathize, but they're being realistic. They're not taking a traumatized ten-year-old to the source of his trauma, but they'll revisit when things are more stable for Anakin.  
> 7\. To clarify: The Mother has Twin sons and a Daughter who became the suns and moon of Tatooine. The Sands is a soldier character in mythology and the Winds is a mercenary character. The Winds tempted the Daughter away and pit her against the Twins who were working with the Sands, setting in motion the two suns and moon and cursing the land of Tatooine to be arid desert, according to the mythology. It's kind of fragmented here, because it's in the thoughts of someone who grew up with it and just _assumes_ its existence/relevance. I'll gladly answer more questions in the comments, but I have a character limit here.  
> 8\. I don't recall where I first saw it, but I do think it an interesting headcanon that there are surnames known to belong within certain slave families vs freeborn families on Tatooine so I ran with it.  
> 9\. Yes, I did intentionally include some parallels with Mortis. It would make sense, given they have the Force, that it gets interpreted both differently and similarly across religions.  
> 10\. The Shorter v Taller thing is because I remember reading somewhere that one of Tatooine's suns was "smaller" than the other and this is how I wanted to manifest that.  
> 11\. I'm from a humid area. And my family lives in an area with dry summer heat. Dry heat beats the humidity any day.  
> 12\. The helmet is based off a hoplite helmet.  
> 13\. Anakin, learning to recognize his limitations. We love to see it.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The link for Kix's perspective on this interaction and some of it's consequences for him can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29697600).

As he walks down that center path, he sighs. It’s been a long time since he came to Ilum and the same ill-ease rested in the caves as when he was younger. It made him want to jump up into the fray, but he calmed himself, he bit back that urge.

“You’re doing better than I remember.”

He had met Sifo-Dyas once. He had delivered the first letter his grandmaster sent. Obi-Wan, foolishly, at fourteen had forgotten to include which apartment to forward the letter to. Instead of leaving it to the Temple’s post distribution service that was equally liable to seek him out as it was to dispose the letter without proper address, he had simply referred it to Sifo-Dyas with instructions to send it to Obi-Wan.

It was one of his favorite letters, if only for the droll _and this time include your apartment, please_ that ended it. Every time he re-read it, he found himself laughing quietly at the line. 

“And what do you remember, exactly?”

Sifo-Dyas had stayed around a few minutes, as Obi-Wan was left at the Temple for one of his Master's missions due to illness at the time of departure. He had visited a few more times, after, and had usually been fun to talk to. A wild card of sorts, but someone who understood how confusing some visions could be. How, sometimes, they could twist the perception of the present as the past because the mind was so wrapped in the possibility that the Force had shown it that it created dissonance.

It makes sense, then, in a strange way, that Sifo-Dyas, dead as he has been for nearly a year now, would be the one to guide him through another type of vision.

“I remember that you were a bit shorter. And wilder, if Qui-Gon’s tales to Yan were to be believed.” Sifo-Dyas smiles at him and gestures down the path of the cave. “Come with me. You have a lot to talk about, and something tells me you haven’t been doing nearly so well as you pretend.

“You haven’t been logging your visions, have you?”

He hasn’t. Sifo-Dyas had recommended it, one time when they had started speaking of their visions more meta-cognitively, when Obi-Wan confessed he had trouble with what his Master had said about living in the now. Sifo-Dyas had suggested it as a way of keeping track, of not losing the vision without losing himself either. Of walking himself back into the now. He had not said anything to Qui-Gon’s refusal to allow wallowing in the visions, and at the time Obi-Wan had taken that as implicit confirmation that his visions were the problem, not his reaction to them. He had shunned them, to some extent, in response.

He says as much, and Sifo-Dyas puts a hand on his shoulder. “That’s fine. It takes time to find what works. They don’t go away though, and if you haven’t been working on them I shudder to think what Ilum could be holding in store for you.”

And that was just it. This was Ilum. He could very well get more information from the Force here than just his dreams could provide.

Sifo-Dyas gestures forward. “I can’t go further. The Force will not allow it.”

Whether he’s a vision or a manifestation, Obi-Wan doesn’t know. But he does know that he can feel his kyber crystal further down this cavern.

Obi-Wan scratches the beginning of an itch as he walks down the cavern a bit further. There is certainly something to be said for this time – it is far easier. His last trip to Ilum, he remembers, involved a lot more anxiety. He wonders at that.

Has he become more stable, emotionally? Has he matured? What has changed between now and then?

He hears steps ahead of him. They are calm and sedate, but there is a spike of fear in the Force. It is warmer, he realizes, than he remembers of Ilum. Not much, but warmer than memory. 

The child is there. His eyes are a forced kind of hollow – he doesn’t want people to know where he is, what he feels. He has a forced calm on his face. Everything about him reminds him of someone pushed too far.

“Help us.”

“Where are you?”

“In the rain.”

That doesn’t tell him much. He knows this child and knows his face. It is nice, on some level, not seeing fire and smoke and hearing screams for once. The child comes closer, but nearly trips. Obi-Wan moves to keep him from falling and then offers his hand, hoping to prevent any more falls. 

It’s calloused, like someone working with heavier equipment.

“We’re in the rain.”

And he will help them, if he can. He wishes there was more information available, though.

The Force echoes the question of whether he’s recorded his visions. Sifo-Dyas being part of this must _mean_ something. Or he’s losing himself in his visions, like he did when he was younger, and he needs to step back.

The Force is communicating with him through this child, but he doesn’t know how or where to help.

“What do you need?”

The child hesitates. He looks nearly six, now. When he first started showing up he looked about eight, then looked older. Now he looks young again. 

He grabs Obi-Wan’s hand, walking with him. “I don’t know.”

“What do you want?”

“We aren’t allowed to want. They give us what we need.” He shakes his head. He looks at Obi-Wan’s hand, where the boy has slipped his hand in Obi-Wan’s hand. “But I like this.”

Affection? Simple affection? He knows that the Jedi sometimes get a bit touch-starved, sometimes go long enough without contact between missions, any courses they’re taking or teaching, and their own personal agendas. But that the boy seems to cherish this moment says something.

“We don’t get this, not from others.”

“Others?”

“The trainers. The scientists. They don’t do this.”

Affection. The trainers and the scientists… none of this paints a promising picture. Obi-Wan mourns this child’s life, and more than that mourns that there is nothing he can do in response. He knows nothing of this child.

He’s in the rain – there are so many planets that have a rain-based ecosystem. It’s almost impossible to narrow down, given if he has trainers and scientists around him it could also be that he was brought there. Legally or illegally, there is no guarantee humans naturally populate that planet.

He has a pool of several hundred potential planets, if he doesn’t assume that rain is a constant. If he makes that assumption, there are still a few dozen, and that’s in the galaxy. He knows there are some organizations heavy in the scientific research that tends beyond “unethical” and into “unsound” that set up their operations extra-galactic so as to avoid most if any restrictions.

The child is here, though, in some capacity, and Obi-Wan can only hope that if they exist somewhere in the galaxy they are receiving the same vision. Something similar, at least, so they get a minimum of comfort.

The itch of his coat is ignorable when this child starts talking about all his brothers.

“What’s your name?”

“Name? I have a designation, but we don’t get names.”

Designation? Obi-Wan plays along.

“CT-6116!” He is proud of it, he talks about how he and his brothers are going to serve the Republic. He talks about his brothers and his home and how everything is white with bright lights.

He says they will be the best soldiers they can. The best the Republic could get, worth every credit. Obi-Wan’s stomach turns at that, but he does not push the matter. The child is proud of himself, for all he says he is a product and shouldn’t feel pride.

“I’m faulty, I know, but I think a lot of us are. I think the Kaminii just care if we can hide it well enough – after all, as long as your army gets back up and shoots the target, why does a general care if they have feelings?”

Because, at the most brutalist, the healthy and mentally sound soldier is the better soldier. At the most empathetic, CT-6116 is still a sentient, and he is entitled to thinking and feeling like any other. Obi-Wan…

He wants to do something about this. He needs to know more. Kaminii is more of a lead than he had before, but it doesn’t sound like any planet he knows, and more than that the name is only one word. Not nearly enough to tell what language it might be, or what region of the galaxy the might be responsible for the derivation. He can, at best, assume the first few letters. Not much to go on, at all.

“And your trainers?”

“They just want the money. We need training, and it’s a lot more steady employment than they get from their usual jobs.”

He gets cagey at that, so Obi-Wan ruffles his hair. It means taking his hand out of CT-6116’s, but the boy seems almost elated that Obi-Wan is being even more affectionate than before. He clings onto Obi-Wan’s arm when it moves from his head, and he looks every bit like the child he is. He looks all of maybe six, at the oldest.

He is so young – crechelings that old are soaking up affection and basking and living in it with no question of belonging or of if they will see it again. CT-6116 is cherishing it like the most valuable commodity in the known galaxy, like it will be taken from him in moments without warning and he may never get it back.

“You going to let my hand go any time soon, Six?”

“Six?”

“Your designation numbers – they start and end in six.”

He shakes his head. “If I ever get a name I don’t want it to be a number. That’s stupid.”

“You don’t have to take one, if you don’t want,” and Obi-Wan won’t know until later just how much of a difference the implication of _taking_ a name made on CT-6116, but in the moment he knows it feels right to say, “I was just trying the nickname for kicks.”

“I like that one.” CT-6116 laughs. “One of my batchmates says I kick too much in practice!”

“Alright then, Kicks.”

One day, when they see each other outside of a Force-sent vision, Obi-Wan will learn he started spelling his name with an xesh, started holding onto the idea that maybe it wasn’t a dream but still distancing himself from it just a tad, just in case.

As it is, CT-6116 stops and his face scrunches at the cavern. “I want to keep going, but I have to wake up soon.”

So it is, in some sense, a shared vision. A dream for Kicks, but something a little more tangible for Obi-Wan. Likely, it occurs to him when he kneels down to bid Kicks farewell before continuing on his own, they would not have had so much conversation had it not been for the fact that Obi-Wan was in Ilum. The Force is strong here, and uninterrupted, unfettered. It can draw stronger connections than it could in the middle of a ship on its way to Kuat, or than it can between Coruscant and its own ballast of murk and wherever Kicks is.

But he has a lead now, and more information than he had before. 

He keeps walking down the passage, and he thinks about that. He wants to do something about it, he is in a position with the flexibility to do something about it, but he has no guarantee he will ever have the opportunity.

Beyond that, he is here for a purpose. He has to focus on what the visions might (outside of clues, he hopes) be communicating. Or, just what they are showing him as he works his way towards his crystal.

Qui-Gon. That’s what it shows him. Qui-Gon stands in front of him, stares through and into him, and he looks _hurt_. He doesn’t move. He is frozen in a moment, and Obi-Wan wonders what happened that his Master looks like that.

Anakin is to the side. It is an older Anakin, so it must be the Force informing him within the vision that it is Anakin. Certainly, he wouldn’t peg the young man as Anakin, but his mind still considers Anakin to be the ten-year-old who flew here with him. He _is_ the ten-year-old that flew here with him.

(He is in a vision, he has to remind himself. That doesn't make this _real_.

But Anakin here looks angry, looks frightened and frustrated and so many things. Just as much as Anakin now is an open book, this Anakin is as well. Perhaps a _bit_ better at hiding it in the shadows of his face. But there was one thing both Obi-Wan and Quinlan knew, and it was that subtlety was not Anakin’s strong suit, and likely never really would be. He would be excellent for guard missions, for assisting governments in putting down violent insurgencies with minimal loss of life on either side, but he would not be suited to things that required the touch of someone who could mask themselves not only in the Force, but in their own person.

His grandmaster, Count Yan Dooku, walks between the two of them. A vision-version of Quinlan stands to the side and looks mournfully towards a vision-version of Aayla, whose back is turned but who does not look angered or wronged. She even smiles. 

“We all must make sacrifices. And sometimes the reminders of those sacrifices are just as difficult, Knight.

“Tell me, are you prepared?” Yan is the speaker, but it doesn't sound like his grandmaster. Not from what Obi-Wan knows of the man from the letters they have exchanged. 

This feels _wrong_. This is not just a vision, just as something tells him that he has engaged in conversation with CT-6116. This is a conversation with… something.

Whatever the Force is doing here, whatever is going on around him it doesn't feel like a vision. It feels active. 

There is only one answer to this vision's question. As a Jedi, as someone who seeks to _protect_ , as someone who knows all too well what little there is he can do but still insists on doing everything he possibly can.

“Yes.”

His kyber crystal is solemn and quiet, not at all like the one in the saber on his belt. This one hums soft, barely there, as though it is anticipating something. There are thin lines across it, unlike what he has seen before of kyber.

He makes his way back to find Anakin trying (valiantly, Obi-Wan would admit) to meditate. As soon as Obi-Wan is close enough to hear – and it is odd, even knowing the caves would suppress some sense of the other, seeing Anakin have to wait that long to notice him when normally he caught sense of Obi-Wan so quickly – Anakin shoots up. “You took longer than me!”

“It would certainly appear that way.”

The Force will communicate with him. In its own time. And in the meantime, he has a lead.

Kam, potentially Kami – the start of a name. He will hold onto that and start digging. Perhaps the visions are nothing, perhaps they are something. Until he has something more concrete, though, he will settle for investigation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Sifo-Dyas absolutely sent Dooku updates on his grandpadawan. Sure, Yan was writing both of them, but Sifo-Dyas shared some stuff, too. I couldn't fit it in the story in any way, but I thought I would share. And Yan absolutely talked about the stories that Qui-Gon told him of Obi-Wan.  
> 2\. I figure, since I'm screwing with visions, I would explore how they can warp someone's perception of time a bit. I figure it also kind of works, given we see Anakin, in canon, get very agitated as though what he is seeing is happening in the immediate future even when we have reason to believe that there is some time left (i.e. he has time to get Padme help given she isn't supposed to be due yet in RotS). If Anakin hasn't manifested visions, though, then it makes sense he has not been trained to work his way back into the present _after_ a vision like someone prone to visions like Sifo-Dyas or Obi-Wan might be.  
> 3\. I know it seemed like I was setting Obi-Wan up for something heavier in Ilum, but I wanted his to be a bit more understated than Anakin's while also acknowledging that there are potential consequences for things like suppressing one's visions or ignoring them. If the Force is like energy and/or feeds on emotions, I could see it being reactive to these kinds of actions and "building up", so to speak, and finding opportunities to be a bit more insistent, i.e. Ilum.  
> 4\. The link for Kix's perspective on this interaction and some of it's consequences for him can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29697600).  
> 5\. I've established that visions aren't perfect in this, and I've also established a recurring vision that hasn't been mentioned for a while. I did both of these things on purpose, and I hope that comes across here. Obi-Wan knows this might be a dead-end, but he still wants to see what he can find and see what the Force is showing him, even if he isn't sure what he is supposed to make of the information. Further, the reference to someone older and now someone younger is also intentional. If you're wondering, it is because he _was_ seeing Cody at first, but now the Force has started showing him Kix instead because the future has already changed based on decisions made.  
> 6\. Again, it's not that Jedi are bad at caring for themselves. I'm going with the idea that sometimes things like touch and whatnot get forgotten in busy schedules. Also, the Jedi are Obi-Wan's default comparison because they are who he is most familiar with. He has the most "data" to compare, if the analogy helps.  
> 7\. Wookiepedia classes Kamino as "extra-galactic" so I'm running with that on the assumption that being outside of galactic powers' reach acts like Gitmo does for the US - ethical concerns can be sidelined because they are not under jurisdiction of any galactic authorities.  
> 8\. Kix, in his chapter, doesn't catalog as much of their dialog because to him it's just nice to talk to someone that isn't holding him to training standards. Also he thinks this is all a dream so he doesn't work on "loose lips sink ships" because well. It's a dream, who's Obi-Wan going to tell?  
> 9\. Yes, I purposefully went for the irony of Kix, as a kid at least, saying that names based on their numbers are stupid only to later work with someone named "Fives". Also, I figure names started becoming a thing as clones got older, and it was a way for trainers to pick out the ones with the spine to make it through. A little different from what I think canon established (or possibly it's just my mind mixing fanon in on accident), but I hope it lands with everyone.  
> 


	28. Chapter 28

The invitation to audience with the outgoing Queen of Naboo, soon to be the Junior Senator of Naboo, Padmé Amidala, was certainly unexpected. If Shaak knew anything, though, it was that a culture that relied so heavily on distraction in decoration would be sympathetic, if not a step ahead, of the Shadows of the Jedi Order.

The Naboo had fought their share of wars; they knew the value of information. They knew, more, the value of allies both known and unspoken.

Padmé is a short young woman, but she is newly sixteen. She will grow, likely, at least a bit more. Her tenure as Queen is up at the end of the month, but she uses her last days to call a Jedi to her planet.

“We are truly grateful to the Order, for all they did to affect change and peace on our planet.”

We are bringing you here for your business because you helped us with ours, Shaak hears.

“The Order exists for all the worlds of the Republic.”

“Then I beg you – consider what you see and learn today with the utmost care.”

The Naboo hide everything in layers of deception. It is why they are truly terrifying politicians. Though the planet is known, as well, for public servants with deep reservoirs of empathy, they are equally known for the kinds of ruthless power brokers that can manage to collate a group of senators opposed to one another on the barest whispers of threat and blackmail.

The Queen she meets, Amidala, does not seem the type to be the latter such politician. But she would not be emblematic of the Naboo if she were not able to effectively deceive.

However, she does not have to involve herself or her planet in the business of the Jedi. And she does.

And Shaak wonders, when she enters the meeting room, if there isn’t good reason for it.

“Master Ti.”

“Count Dooku.” She smiles. She did not know him particularly well – they never truly ran in the same circles – but the few times they met they were cordial enough with one another. She has reason to believe he is still abiding by similar philosophies to her own, even if they serve different goals now.

“I have reason to believe we might be mutually beneficial to one another.”

“Truly?”

She had heard whisper that there were those outside the Order being approached. Jocasta had always been one of the best, had started long before Shaak’s tenure in charge of the organization. She had asked, once, why Jocasta would not put herself forward to run the Shadows, only to learn that part of what Jocasta appreciated about her position as internal eyes and ears was that she had so much of her time that could be spent learning, escaping some of what she did professionally. 

What Count Dooku lays out for her is something clear. Not only is it an opportunity, it is a warning. There is a man working on the current homeworld of the Jedi. A man who likely has his own networks and his own people that can help him further these agendas.

The meeting room they have been granted looks out over land healing from recent battle. The battles for Naboo were over a year ago now, nearly two gone, and yet the land is slow to heal in some parts. Scorched earth, literally in the case of certain tracks, still lingers and begs the water of the planet and the time of the people in order to start coming back.

The people here have not forgotten, either. The other thing the Naboo were known for was their long memory. It will be many generations before the Trade Federation is welcomed even nominally in Naboo airspace. If forced, the Naboo will greet them with all the aplomb and grace of the truest of hosts, all the while having knives and blasters ready at their backs. 

Dooku is staring out the same window, seeing the same healing scars. “My people will not become subject to the whims of a banking clan. More than that, I will not see those I still hold dear slaughtered at the hands of another.”

Because what else would a Sith want, after power? The wars between Jedi and Sith have been centuries in the making, and it was arrogance that allowed the Jedi, Shaak herself included, to believe the ideas would never latch hold on another mind. Never find purchase somewhere else they might be able to fester in secret, until the individuals responsible took the chance they would one day find.

Patience, biding time, these are not merely Jedi virtues. For all they are the diametric opposite of the Jedi, even the Sith have always taught that the Force will, in its way and time, provide. That there is merit in waiting for time to open doors. As Yan Dooku lays out his findings, he also lays out a question. One that is asked around, but not properly asked. For all that he doesn't explicitly say it, likely to give them both something plausibly deniable, Shaak hears it anyway. 

Dooku watches her carefully. “And what do you think of my proposition?”

“I think you are out of your depth. It is good you have reached out, though.” Shaak shakes her head. It is an opportunity, she reminds herself. The people she commands know the risks, she has to slip into her mind between breaths. Protecting them will only hurt them all, in the long run. “Though I doubt you intend to come back, correct?”

He confirms as much.

“It’s been decades since the Shadows worked with a civilian contractor in this deep of a role. Often we contract for informers or for intel, but these are temporary arrangements, I’m sure you understand.” Yan Dooku nods, and she prepares herself for what she must, one day, tell his padawan. “Then you know, just as well, that you will be expected to maintain contact with an individual of my choosing. That you will be, in most ways, this individual’s equal but, in matters of the Order, they will not be beholden to share anything with you.”

He nods once more. “And yet if we draw him away from your Order long enough, you may yet prepare for whatever it is he is planning.”

“Whatever he is planning, we will do our level best to reveal in time to prevent it. If we can prevent it.”

Because some storms, you can only nail down the windows and doors and hide in the basement, hoping you make it through. Sometimes you don’t have near enough warning to evade catastrophe, or if you do you have no chance to escape.

And the Jedi must be ready for every possibility. Once they have the information, she will be in a position to work with the Council to plan their contingencies.

There is so much to plan here, but first of all she must test him with a few Shadows. Some of the younger, perhaps, who have fewer notions about Yan Dooku. Under thirty, they should be distanced enough from Galidraan not to remember that this is the same man who led a war-force.

Yes, that bit of history lingers in the Order. And it is what will make him so _convincing_ should this work. He has his own reputation for capability – for ruthless capability. He will make a good apprentice to the Sith, even if it is only temporary. In name only.

“And how does your sister feel about this?”

“Jenza understands, for all she does not approve.”

Ah, family. A tempestuous and lovely thing. Shaak smiles. “Then assure her we will do everything in our power to protect you from premature death.”

Not that she can promise much in the way of protection. That is the nature of being undercover. But she will do what she can, with and without Council knowledge.

Certainly, this informant cannot make it out of the Council of First Knowledge, not until they have more. If they need to put Yan Dooku down, they need it to be without the Council knowing they had recruited him in the first place. If they need to take him out, it is best it remains in-house.

If they do not, and he proves to be everything they needed to avert catastrophe? Best to have plenty of evidence before admitting to the plans they had undertaken. The Council will need plausible deniability, in either case.

“And you understand the other risks?”

The risk that he will be put down, with extreme prejudice, if there is reason to believe he is turning against them. That he will die, his body will be discarded of, and no one will receive so much as a single word. He will simply disappear between one day and the next.

The Jedi are above assassinations. That is why the Shadows exist so carefully on the edges of their sight. Best to work and act in a way that does not inspire questions, for all it inspires intrigue among the ranks of the younger Padawans and older Initiates.

“I do.”

“Then I do believe we may tell our kind hosts that we are finished.”

Dooku nods. “I think it best we make this seem as acrimonious as possible. Reluctant, yes, but also on the verge of adversarial.”

Not an unsound tactic. There is little doubt that the Sith, whether Dooku’s suspicions are well-founded or not, is keeping some sort of tabs on his potential recruits. That will mean he knows of the meeting within the ten-day – Shaak always finds it best to be as pessimistic as possible with these estimates.

The gossip would need to be carefully planted around the Temple in order to make it believable. After all, there was only so much a cover story could do for encouraging rumor. A few Shadows, the ones known for their association, spreading rumor “from their latest mission” would catch ears. Seeding the rumors in the younger ranks would ensure wider coverage, but going for those on the slightly higher end of their twenties would keep it at least somewhat contained.

Once it hit the padawans, controlling the gossip would be nigh on impossible. But if it hit there, other benefits became obvious – namely, padawans exaggerated everything. Half truths became ridiculous tales and then Shaak could strategically deny or deflect on various parts of the story until it took yet another shape of her choosing.

There is so much to do and so little time to do it.

“We will be in touch to provide you with your contact, Count.”

“Thank you.”

The dinner that the Naboo hold for them is filled with the same amount of pageantry as anything the Naboo do, and for all that there is a respect for the distance they have created Shaak gets the distinct impression that the Queen, at the very least, and her upcoming successor see through them. The Naboo are no strangers to deception, and they understand the value in it, just as they understand the need for discretion. This dinner, itself, is merely the incoming Queen, her outgoing predecessor, several handmaidens, and members of either household. There are no public officers here, no one that might report back the exact happenings of the dinner.

It would seem the little Queen has her own makings of an intelligence officer in her. Had she been a Jedi, Shaak might have apprenticed her herself, taught her and groomed her to take over the Shadows when Shaak was done. Instead, she rests easy knowing someone with a penchant for this kind of thing will soon be in the Senate. Shaak makes note of the name – Padmé Amidala, legal surname Naberrie – in order to see what can be done about making more connections.

When Shaak departs Naboo, with so few of the Order any wiser she had left, she looks out into the streaking starlight of hyperspace. She does everything she can to prepare, but it feels so much like she is still three steps behind the Force, behind fate, behind the Sith. Whatever machinery the galaxy turns on, it turns faster than Shaak is ready for.

Has she gotten complacent? Is she too old for this work, losing her edge to the march of time? Should she be looking now for her successor?

There are so many questions, she doesn’t have time for doubt. But if she does not doubt, how is she to know when it is time to step aside in favor of a new leader?

She sleeps uneasily that cycle, and each cycle until she finally sets foot on Coruscant. It is time to make a shortlist of candidates to replace her. She has one from three years ago, but there is so much changing – it is time to revisit and rework and remake it. She may have ten years, she may have three. She must prepare the Shadows for her inevitable absence.

Death and war, she knows, are two things that wait for no one. And there is something sharper in the Force with each passing day, has been for weeks now.

Perhaps, she ponders, Naboo is one place to start looking for answers to some of these new questions; an unanticipated attack on them from the Trade Federation, the limp response from their Senator… While not ever an explicit topic, she knows that the planet had to be chosen for a reason. Yan Dooku was not known for frivolous decisions, in his time. 

It begs the question, certainly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Why would Naboo be ahead of the Shadows? Because they have individualized, local interests to devote their local funds to, whereas the Shadows absolutely have a level of bureaucracy to navigate in and around the Senate and the other Jedi sub-organizations. It's a little beyond the scope of this fic, but essentially the Naboo can work around some things that the Shadows might not be able to; in that vein, there are some things that the Shadows can do, obviously, as a more inter-system agency, that the Naboo cannot.   
> 2\. So we get a bit more explicit into what Dooku is going to be doing...   
> 3\. I love the Jedi, I really do, but from Shaak's perspective she has to be brutally honest with herself when there is a failure like this in order to prevent it from happening again. It does not need to reach self-flagellation but it does need to be "You didn't think it could happen and it did, and you can't be that short-sighted in the future".   
> 4\. She wants things in-house for now because the Shadows are autonomous enough she knows they are working with a delicate balance. I never really feel like I can get into it in chapters, but they need the other Jedi to trust them, and that often means lying to them when shit hits the fan because they know that they already are getting away with/separated by a lot.   
> 5\. Yes, this plausible deniability for the Council is meant to insinuate that Shaak would take a career hit for the organization if it meant they were successful. She'll still be a Jedi, maybe even a Shadow, she just wouldn't be head of the Council of First Knowledge/leader of the Shadows anymore. 
> 
> Not so many notes this time. Rough week this week, and another lined up next week. Spring break is coming, though, so I should be able to get some R&R then.


End file.
